DENVER (KDVR) — It isn’t just the Centennial State. Colorado’s land-use bill is a local example of a zoning policy discussion happening in state legislatures across the nation.
The original bill would have preempted local land control, requiring 30% of single-family zoned land to be rezoned for denser development. Representatives heavily amended the bill, however. Instead, the bill would create a state board to review land use issues.
Across the country, the measures seek some kind of pressure valve for housing prices, which have mushroomed in price in the last decade and particularly in the West.
As with Colorado’s bill, some are bipartisan.
Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon, Utah, Virginia and Washington have each considered some kind of state control measure in the last five years, according to a policy analysis group Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Each has considered or passed some form of policy designed to allow more density in areas currently zoned exclusively for single-family buildings. These range from a bill in Arizona, which would have allowed further density in all areas zoned for agriculture or single family to Oregon, which banned single-family zoning entirely in 2019.
As with Colorado’s land use bill, the proposals in many states met fierce opposition and end up either watered down or rejected. In Arizona, the original bill ended up establishing a committee or that cities and towns simply show they are working toward affordable housing. Maine’s state land use bill was eventually amended to simply allow accessory dwelling units in single-family zoned homes. In North Carolina, a similar bill failed after local opposition.