The City of Thornton is not joining six other home rule cities in a lawsuit that claims new state laws and Gov. Jared Polis are usurping their authority over local land use issues.
Thornton is still backing the cities in their efforts to keep local control over decisions related to growth within the boundaries of those cities, Mayor Jan Kulmann said recently.
“Thornton fully supports the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, and we will continue to evaluate how we can best help their effort,” Kulmann said via email. “City Council believes it’s important to sustain the rights of our residents to be able to have a voice in land use decisions in Thornton.
“We also oppose the Governor’s effort to preempt Colorado’s Home Rule Authority laws in ways that take away cities and towns’ power to make decisions on how their communities are affected by development,” she said.
Challenging an executive order
Westminster, Greenwood Village, Arvada, Aurora, Glendale and Lafayette filed the lawsuit in Denver District Court targeting two land use bills passed last year by the Colorado General Assembly.
The first – HB 24-1304 – prohibits local governments from enacting or enforcing minimum parking requirements on multifamily housing developments located in transit areas, according to the plaintiffs.
The second – HB 24-1313 – requires 32 local governments in the Front Range to change their zoning in transit areas and permit a minimum density of 40 dwelling units per acre — a number that, if met, would produce 10 times the existing housing stock around RTD stops in Greenwood Village alone, the plaintiffs claim.
For parcels under five acres in size, there would be no public hearings on dense housing proposals, the local governments said in a joint statement.
The lawsuit also challenges an executive order issued by Gov. Jared Polis that threatens local governments with withholding more than $100 million in funds if they don’t comply with a series of housing laws enacted in the last two years.
Greenwood Village Mayor George Lantz said in a recent statement that the actions of state lawmakers and the governor are attempts to set aside the rights of residents in home rule cities to chart local growth without government interference.
“We’re seeing a steady erosion of our citizens’ ability to control the communities in which they live,” said Lantz in his statement. “The flurry of legislative proposals continually eroding our home-rule rights applies a top-down, one-size-fits-all approach, removing all their uniqueness. The state doesn’t care how cities have carefully planned their communities, nor how the state’s particular vision of land use will affect our cities and the people living in them. Our purpose in filing the lawsuit is to have the court stop the state from controlling local land use matters that require local decision making and public input.”
A spokesperson for the governor said the housing policies are in place to combat Colorado’s acute housing shortage. “It’s disappointing to see certain local governments that have among the priciest homes in Colorado use taxpayer money on a lawsuit that could go toward lowering the cost of housing. It’s clear this lawsuit is about preventing more housing from being built that Coloradans can afford,” the spokesperson said, according to Colorado Politics.