Rent control ordinances have been illegal in Colorado, and rightly so, since 1981. That is not about to change. But you wouldn’t know it from listening to the powerful coalition determined to kill House Bill 1017.

We’re proud of this bill and what it will accomplish. This bill will do 3 things: it will allow towns and developers to negotiate for affordable housing in new developments, it will help people who live and work in places where there is a lack of affordable housing, and it will preserve public investment and make sure taxpayer dollars are not wasted.

It will do this by returning affordable housing laws back to the way they were prior to conflicting court rulings, so that cities, towns and counties, not the state government or the courts, have the authority to make local affordable housing decisions.

HB 1017 is a pro-economic development, pro-free market bill. Opponents claim that the legislation will bring “New York style rent control” to Colorado. These are scare tactics and the claim is false.

Approximately 250,000 families in Colorado still struggle to afford rent or find adequate housing. Across the State, demand for decent affordable rental housing equates to waiting lists of 5 years or more. When renters pay too large a portion of their wages for housing, they have little left to cover other necessities like food and health care. This can lead to increased use of community social services and increased demand on the finite resources of nonprofits, municipalities and the State.

Even opponents of this bill have conceded that that rents throughout Colorado have accelerated faster than inflation over the past decade, and that Colorado has a documented need for housing at the very low income levels. We can’t rely exclusively on federal programs to provide for the state’s affordable rental needs.

HB 1017 mandates nothing but simply allows local communities to find their own solutions to housing needs. HB 1017 encourages local creativity and non-reliance on federal government funding to provide adequate affordable rental housing as a unique community defines such need.

Any discussion of income levels and corresponding ability to afford housing is a complex equation when considering that Colorado’s communities are as diverse as our mountains are to our prairies. By allowing local governments to help developers with incentives to help meet specific, local housing needs, HB 1017 promotes economic activity, creates jobs, and stabilizes communities.

Rent for a two-bedroom apartment rose in 89 percent of 210 national markets studied, according to a study released just this week. But, ultimately housing is a local, not a national issue. It is not appropriate for Colorado to continue to restrict private developers and local communities from willingly and voluntarily contracting to meet housing need. This is especially true in times of tight budgets, when the State of Colorado has limited resources to help local communities with affordable housing development.

Local governments are willing to provide incentives that developers are asking for, but many are advised not to do so for fear that those taxpayer-funded incentives will be lost in a court battle. HB 1017 supports both local business and the Colorado economy. We urge the General Assembly to support efforts to give local communities the home-grown tools to address this important problem of adequate, safe, decent and affordable housing.

• Housing Colorado
• Rabbi Joel R. Schwartzman
• Thistle Communities
• Voices for Justice
• Lutheran Advocacy Ministry Colorado
• Joe Rowan, Executive Director, Funding Partners
• Ken Hoagland, President, Community Capital Corporation
• Sen. Betty Boyd (D- JeffCo)
• Rep. Daniel Kagan (D-Denver/Englewood)

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“One of the harder things for a legislator is to pull one of your own bills,” Rep. Ellen Roberts, D-Durango, writes in The Durango Herald. “But sometimes it’s necessary. Unfortunately, I had to kill one of mine recently, House Bill 1142, which had to do with setting up a statewide program intended to improve recruitment and retention of workers in the direct health-care profession, generally meaning certified nurse aides, or CNAs. The bill was an idea brought to me by a knowledgeable Durango constituent, Charlie Speno, who after many years of working in the field of care of the elderly and disabled, was made keenly aware of the work force challenges for nurse aide paraprofessionals.”

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By Nancy J. Burke, VP of Government Affairs, COLORADO APARTMENT ASSOCIATION

Not even a week after the 2010 Colorado legislative session commenced, a bill that would allow municipalities to assess rent was introduced and assigned to the Local Government Committee. The bill (HB1017) came out of the Economic Opportunity Poverty Reduction Task Force Committee.

Should Colorado look to the failed housing policy of rent control? Setting price controls through rent has reduced supply and private investment in affordable housing. It also has a negative effect on school funding. Rent control lowers property values, which in turn lowers taxes received by the state to fund schools. Forty-six states have no rent control policies and thirty-five of those have statutes which make rent control illegal. In fact, the liberal state of Massachusetts voted to repeal rent control because it was not providing housing to those truly in need.

Current state law prohibits counties and municipalities from enacting any ordinance that would control rent on private residential property. The law was enacted in 1981 because of statewide concern that if rent controls could be imposed on properties, investment in rental housing in Colorado would significantly decrease. Thus, the adoption of such controls by local governments or the state would have an adverse impact on the rental housing market. This legislative history is well known in Lot Thirty-Four Venture v. Town of Telluride, a case decided in 2000 in which the Colorado Supreme court held that a Telluride ordinance constituted a form of rent control in violation of the statute.

Since then, local government groups and housing advocates have made numerous attempts to amend the statute. Each time these attempts were quelled.

House Bill 1017 attempts to unnecessarily “clarify” the rent control statute. It permits a property owner and municipality (or county or housing authority) to enter into a “contract” that controls rent on private property. We continue to see more localities impose requirements on developers and owners to agree to rent control or affordable housing requirements as a condition placed upon the developer to obtain project approval.

Currently, Colorado statute provides that a governmental entity can control any property “in which it has an interest” through a housing authority or similar agency. This bill attempts to broaden that “interest” so that the local government can impose a rent control restriction through a deed restriction or covenant. This would allow local governments, when approving a project, to force the owner or developer to sign a deed restriction with a rent control provision giving the government the power to enforce that restriction. If so, that deed restriction would be exempt from the rent control prohibition. The deed restriction or covenant runs with the land (it is recorded on the property) and can never be altered without the written express consent of the government agency and an owner. This forever restricts the property.

In short, HB 1017 adversely affects private property rights because these rent controls are imposed by governmental entities with leverage on the owner/developer. This bill takes away the statewide prohibition of rent control.

Further, there is NO need for this legislation. Land Use Restrictive Agreements (LURA) are available and in use today. They require just compensation to the developer in exchange for affordable units to be rented to residents with AMI below a certain level. These contracts are working.

The Colorado Apartment Association has taken a position of opposition and is actively lobbying against the bill. For more information contact Nancy Burke, Vice President of Government Affairs, Colorado Apartment Association at nburke@aamdhq.org or 303-548-3193.

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STATE BILL COLORADO
Here’s a roundup of commentary from state media orgs.

The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel: We expect (Josh) Penry will continue to play a key role in local and state politics. We expect to be writing news stories about Josh Penry for a long time to come. Good luck, Josh, whatever the future holds.

The Denver Post: State Rep. Cory Gardner is right to question the many membership fees state government continues to pay while officials look for ways trim $1.5 billion from the budget.

The Denver Post: Let’s get this straight: If Colorado public officials want to hide who they’re talking to as they’re conducting the people’s business, all they have to do is make those calls on personal cellphones?

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“Ballot proposals like the two just accepted by the Secretary of State prove a dangerous point that TABOR is already teaching us: budget language has no business in the state’s Constitution,” The Aurora Sentinel’s Aaron Cole writes.

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“Colorado’s senior Republicans, with the dogged assistance of The Denver Post, are trying to claim a scalp in the battle over Stephanie Villafuerte’s nomination to be Colorado U.S. Attorney,” Adams Deputy DA and part-time Aspenite Paul Nitze writes. “A Post subscriber might reasonably conclude, based on recent coverage, that we have a scandal on our hands to rival Teapot Dome. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

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“What a hatchet job the Republican Party – along with The Durango Herald – did on Lew Webb, the one-time candidate for the state representative of the 59th District,” Paul Bynum writes in The Durango Herald.

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Denver Post columnist Mike Littwin writes: “Don’t feel guilty if you don’t find time to read the Platform for Prosperity — that roll-off- the-tongue PFP — or whatever Colorado Republicans are calling their unity platform these days. This is your basic political document — and I don’t mean that in a good way — in which Republicans from Tom Tancredo to Josh Penry to Bill Owens to Scott McInnis can pretend to agree on issues great and small. They can pretend to agree because the document isn’t actually about real issues.”

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The Denver Post columnist writes: “Shouldn’t Coloradans expect their district attorneys to refrain from exploiting their unique power and access to information on behalf of partisan politics?”

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“A battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party is underway in upstate New York,” the former Colorado congresswoman writes in The Washington Examiner. “At stake is whether a candidate’s gender and vote for House Speaker ultimately hold more sway than the values reflected in her record.”

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