At the end of last year, the Littleton City Council expressed interest in seeing how additional “missing middle” housing types could be built in Littleton neighborhoods. Through several discussions — and dedicated city planning staff work over the past year — a code amendment took form.
A code amendment is a change to the city’s code, which sets standards for city planning across the municipality.
The proposed Neighborhood Housing Opportunities change intends to expand “missing middle” housing options in Littleton to allow for more diverse housing types in the community, according to the city’s website.
If the code amendment is passed, all residential zones in the city — including some that now primarily only allow single-family detached homes — would allow duplexes and multiplexes. Other proposed changes would make it easier to build three- to four-unit townhomes in some areas, and would ease the limitations on accessory dwelling units (ADUs).
Click below to get answers to your questions on the amendment.
What is zoning? What is the Unified Land Use Code? What role do they play in city planning?
Zoning is a series of ordinances adopted by the city council setting standards for the location, size of buildings and the use of buildings and land throughout the city, according to the city’s website.
Littleton’s zoning regulations are outlined in the city’s Unified Land Use Code, also known as the ULUC. Littleton has various zoning districts with designated development standards, such as permitted uses, building heights, parking requirements, setback requirements and minimum open space requirements.
The proposed code change aims to expand the building types allowed in Littleton’s neighborhood zone districts.
What is ‘missing middle’ housing and why do people say it’s missing?
“Missing middle housing refers to housing types that fall in between single-family detached houses and mid-rise apartment buildings,” the city website states. “Examples include duplexes, triplexes, accessory dwelling units (ADUs), cottage court communities and multiplexes.”
“Missing middle” housing can “assist in both increasing the number of units built and providing units for a wide variety of price points,” according to the National Association of Home Builders. These housing types can provide options for those who cannot afford to buy a detached single-family home and for those who have housing needs that apartments do not meet.
The challenge in Littleton and across the country, however, is that “missing middle” housing types are in critically short supply, according to a municipal advocacy organization called the National League of Cities.
“Middle housing is largely considered ‘missing’ because such building types have been often illegal or difficult to build since the mid-1940s due to single-family zoning and building requirements for mid- to high-rise apartment buildings,” the National League of Cities states. “Thus, many of the existing middle housing stock was built in the 1920s and 1930s and is experiencing a decline in quality, safety and accessibility.”
Littleton’s senior planner, Zareen Tasneem, said improving housing affordability could be a byproduct of the potential code changes, but the goal of the Neighborhood Housing Opportunities code amendment is largely to offer Littleton residents a choice concerning what type of housing they can create and live in.
“If (someone) wanted to build a duplex or convert their home maybe into a multiplex … that might not have been permitted or been possible before, and now, with this code amendment, that is something that would at least be a possibility,” she said. “If the code amendment is approved, people have the choice to at least do something of that nature.”
If passed, how would the Neighborhood Housing Opportunities proposed code change affect my neighborhood?
If passed, the code change would mean that none of Littleton’s residential districts would allow only single-family detached homes.
The Neighborhood Housing Opportunities proposed zoning change would adjust residential zone districts in the following ways. The items in bolded italics are the housing types that would be newly permitted under the amended code.
Some properties in the city that are governed by planned development zoning regulations, however, would still only allow single-family detached homes and ADUs, Tasneem said.
| Zone | General type/area | Allowed purposes under current code | Proposed allowed purposes |
| Acreage Residential (ACR) | Large, estate-sized lots. E.g.: Neighborhood near West Rangeview Drive between South Prince Street and South Windermere Street | Single-family detached* | Single-family detached*, duplex and multiplex |
| Large Lot Residential (LLR) | Large lots. E.g.: Neighborhood between Jackass Hill Park and West Mineral Avenue, most of Aberdeen Village | Single-family detached* | Single-family detached*, duplex and multiplex |
| Medium Lot Residential (MLR) | Covers the majority of Littleton. E.g.: Neighborhoods in the immediate vicinity of Ralph Moody Elementary School | Single-family detached*, cottage court community | Single-family detached*, cottage court community, duplex, multiplex and three- to four-unit townhome |
| Small Lot Residential (SLR) | Residential areas nearest to downtown. E.g.: Neighborhood across West Littleton Boulevard from the Cherry Cricket restaurant | Single-family detached*, cottage court community, duplex** | Single-family detached*, cottage court community, duplex, multiplex and three- to four-unit townhome |
| Multi-Family Residential (MFR) | Intended to be of the highest residential density in the city, except for the Corridor Mixed (CM) district. E.g.: Neighborhood south of Progress Park, between West Prentice Avenue, West Crestline Avenue, South Delaware Street and South Huron Way | Duplex, multiplex, townhome, cottage court community, apartment complex. Manufactured home park, recreational vehicle park and tiny home community by conditional use. | Allowed purposes in this zone would be largely unchanged by the proposed code changes. |
*= plus limited agricultural, civic and/or institutional uses
**= in some areas, when approved by a public hearing
What do all these housing types mean?
According to the proposed code changes, the definitions of each structure are as follows:
Single-family detached: A principal residential structure, other than a mobile home, designed and used as a residential dwelling unit, that is located on its own lot and not attached to any other dwelling, and can include rooming and boarding as an accessory use.
Duplex: A residential building structure that includes two dwelling units.
Multiplex: A building that has three or four units, has at least one door facing the front and does not meet the definition of townhome.
Townhome: A building with three or more units that has the front and back exposed. In the context of the proposed code changes, only three- to four-unit townhomes would be added as newly allowed structures in any residential-zoned districts.
Cottage court community: A cluster of homes around a central open space.
Accessory dwelling unit (ADU): A self-contained living unit located on the same parcel as a principal dwelling unit. These are sometimes colloquially called casitas, mother-in-law units or granny flats.
Apartment: Any building structurally divided into five or more separate dwelling units on a single parcel. Rental apartments and condominiums fall into this category for the purposes of zoning.
If passed, would the Neighborhood Housing Opportunities proposed code change make it easier to build ADUs?
The proposed code changes adjust regulations for ADUs. Tasneem said the goal of these code adjustments is to bring city code in line with a new state law that makes it easier for people to build ADUs.
If passed, the proposed zoning code changes would:
- Remove the alley access requirement for detached ADUs
- Allow detached ADUs in all neighborhood zone districts
- Increase the gross floor area allowed for detached ADUs
- Permit ADUs in areas that have single-family-only planned development regulations
- Allow the maximum height of an ADU to be equal to a single-family detached home in the same zone district
- Remove the minimum parking requirements for ADUs
Tasneem said a few of the proposed ADU code changes make ADUs more permissive than the state law requires. For example, if the code changes pass, Littleton would allow ADUs to be up to 1,000 square feet in gross floor area, instead of only up to 750 square feet, which is the standard in state law. Tasneem said the goal of this more permissive maximum size allowance is to make it easier for people to convert existing structures, such as large garages, into ADUs.
Of the middle housing types included in the proposed code change, Tasneem said the city sees the most inquiries related to ADUs.
“A lot of inquiries we’ve received in the last couple of years have been related to detached ADUs and people wanting to build them, and often related to multigenerational living,” she said.
For example, some families might have an adult child with disabilities who they want to be able to provide with their own living space, while still having them nearby. In other cases, families may want to have an ADU for aging parents.
For many families who have wanted to pursue these options in recent years, the current code has not allowed them to do so, Tasneem said.
Would the ‘missing middle’ housing types be taller than my house?
As part of the code amendment, city staff is not proposing any changes to the maximum heights allowed in any residential zone district.
Across the residential zone districts involved in the code change, the maximum height for single-family detached homes, duplexes, multiplexes and three- to four-unit townhomes is 30 feet.
“Currently, a single-family (home) can be built to a maximum of 30 feet, and we kept that consistent,” Tasneem said. “If someone were to propose to build a duplex, it would also be a maximum of 30 feet. Same for multiplex, townhome and college court community.”
The city also has rules in place to require landscaped bufferyards, such as trees, between properties when the height difference between a building and its adjacent building is significantly different.
Would the ‘missing middle’ housing types be close to my property line?
In city planning, a setback refers to the distance a structure is required to be from its front, side and rear property lines.
Tasneem said the setback requirements for the “missing middle” housing types would be generally consistent with the setback requirements for single-family detached homes in the neighborhood zones.
Duplexes would have the same setback requirement as single-family detached homes in the same zone district. For multiplexes and three- to four-unit townhomes that would be newly permitted in some zone districts, the setback requirements could vary slightly from single-family detached and duplex setback requirements because of the different arrangements of these building types.
“Think about those products — they might have drive-aisles to get to some of those individual units that might take up some of the land area that a single-family detached might not have,” she said. “Or a detached garage structure, or things like that. So again, it gets down a little more into kind of thinking about the intent of the product, and … the design of the product.”
The difference in setback requirements would not be vast, Tasneem said. For example, in Medium Lot Residential or Small Lot Residential zones, the required rear setback for a single-family detached home or duplex would be at least 20 feet, but multiplexes could have a rear setback of 15 feet.
What would the process be to build ‘missing middle’ housing in my neighborhood?
Currently, single-family homes and some ADUs are the only housing products in most Littleton neighborhood zones that do not need to go through a site plan review process, Tasneem said. In a site plan review process, an applicant is required to go through a pre-application meeting with city staff and staff of other relevant districts, two neighborhood meetings and submit a land use application.
If the proposed code changes are approved, applicants who want to build a duplex, multiplex or three- to four-unit townhome in most residential zone districts would not need to go through a pre-application meeting or neighborhood meetings, Tasneem said. Instead, these structures would go through a building permit process, which includes administrative review from city staff.
Cottage court communities, where permitted, would still need to go through the process that includes a pre-application meeting and neighborhood meetings.
What do my neighbors think about the proposed changes?
Some residents in Littleton have expressed concerns that allowing “missing middle” housing types in these areas would backfire, allowing developers to raze old homes to create more expensive housing instead of housing that’s more affordable. They also expressed concerns about how the newly allowed housing types would impact the character of their communities.
Other residents have said the change would re-legalize housing types that would make Littleton a more affordable place for people who can’t currently afford to live there. They said the change to neighborhoods would likely be “gentle” and, in many cases, unnoticeable. Even if the properties are not particularly defined as “affordable,” they argued that adding more housing stock would help housing affordability in the long run, since Littleton and Colorado as a whole are facing a housing shortage.
Read the Littleton Independent’s earlier coverage here and here to learn more about what residents and city officials have said about the proposed plan.
What other cities have adopted similar zoning changes? How is it working there?
A number of cities — including Minneapolis and Austin — have ended single-family zoning. Across the country, some states have even joined the trend, including Oregon and Maine.
In Minneapolis and Portland, the zoning changes and allowance of more “missing middle” housing types did not lead to dramatic changes in the makeup of the city’s housing stock, according to an article by Colorado Public Radio.
The production of duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes in Minneapolis has been very modest, with just 53 units in 2021, as reported by Colorado Public Radio. The same article states that Portland’s first year of allowing more “missing middle” housing types led to only a few hundred units of these newly legal structures.
Rent increases have tempered in both cities, but experts say it’s possible that other housing policies — like eliminating parking requirements — have led to increased housing development, which has largely helped stabilize housing costs in these cities. Some researchers say eliminating single-family-only zoning is one step towards reducing barriers to building more housing, but additional policies can be more important to create more housing stock.
Alexander von Hoffman, a lecturer and senior research fellow with the Harvard Graduate School of Design, said that “the recent laws against single-family zoning are but the first steps in a long march.”
“Merely eliminating single-family zoning, history suggests, is unlikely to increase housing stock significantly,” he said. “To unleash residential development will require peeling back layers of regulations that have accrued over the decades. That could mean reducing minimum lot sizes, relaxing overly stringent construction and site requirements, easing design reviews, and rolling back some environmental controls, including certain provisions for wetlands and open space.”
Last year, Englewood considered a similar zoning change as part of its code update project called CodeNext. Its city council discussed allowing two- to four-unit buildings — duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes — to be built on some residential lots that exist within the city’s primarily single-family-zoned districts, as long as at least one of the units was more affordable.
After several meetings that incited significant pushback from residents, Englewood officials decided to indefinitely end the conversation about the potential zoning change to single-family districts, but adopted other changes including easing restrictions on ADUs.
When will the city make a decision on the change? How can I make my voice heard?
Littleton City Council will discuss and vote on the proposed code change during a meeting at 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 7. There will be an opportunity for public comment on the change during this meeting, prior to the council’s vote.
Residents may also reach out to their city council members to share their thoughts.
The potential of this passing fills me with so much hope. I’m very thankful for the Littletom voters that elected this City Council and their vision for a more diverse and lower cost Littleton.
Hopefully the Citizens of Littleton will show up for this meeting and make our voices heard. We cannot allow these outside special interest dark money groups like “Vibrant Littleton” to come in, tear down our beloved City, and replace our neighborhoods with New Denver-style box-plex houses.