There is one tried and true way to affect the price of rent: vacancies.
One of the biggest drivers of increased rental costs in the metroplex — as well as much of the state and the nation — is a dearth of empty rentals.
For the past few years, rents have gone up, and renters pay it. Without opposing market forces, little else can control the rental market, and the real estate market, too.
Colorado has become a magnet for good-paying jobs and relatively young, cash-flush people to take them. Despite a persistent rental-housing building boon, demand continues to flag or surpass supply.
The Legislature’s answer to all this has centered on not just building more housing, but building more housing where people live much closer together. It’s nearly the antithesis of how the Front Range developed over the past century.
The metroplex, and almost every other Front Range community, is pegged on big yards, far apart, connected to myriad streets where almost all of us get around in a car, and often alone.
More dwellings, smaller and closer together, in places where you don’t have to get in a car every time you leave your house really could reduce traffic, and pollution. It would also reduce energy and water usage.
But will it directly reduce the cost of rent?
Maybe. But probably not fast.
Despite the unclear path to cheaper rent mapped out by state lawmakers, bills they passed and Gov. Jared Polis signed could have many positive effects in a few years, among them, helping push down rents.
House Bill 1313 promotes multi-family housing along transit corridors in the metroplex and beyond.
The Sentinel and others lauded the bill, and for good reason. It’s tied to $35 million in incentives going to cities that “comply” with the density standards.
Since Aurora and Denver have already designed their light-rail corridors to pack in multifamily housing, this is a winning proposition for everyone.
Will it help drive down rental costs? The Colorado Sun reports that a Minneapolis study of similar proposals there say it did just that.
A more complicated but compelling idea in House Bill 1152 could have more profound effects across the region.
The bill presses cities and HOAs to allow many homeowners to build so-called “accessory dwelling units” in their yards. We know these ADUs as “mother-in-law” units or “granny flats.”
Not only could this create relatively cheap housing in big backyards, or turning a garage into a rental unit, it could also create a source of revenue for millions of people in Colorado.
For those with homes on alleys and room to modify a garage or tear down an old one and put up an ADU, this is an attractive plan. It gets more complicated in areas where set-backs from existing homes and neighbors’ property creates real issues.
Far more practical, and long overdue, is House Bill 1007. This measure prohibits local governments and HOAs from limiting how many unrelated people can live together.
If a house is designed and approved for 6 residents, it’s no one’s business but the residents living there what their relationship is. Such “You-plus-two” scams — essentially banning anyone but immediate families from living in a home — have long been side-eye ways for cities and HOAs to discriminate against migrants and unrelated poor people.
This measure is most likely to have a measurable effect on cutting rent bills among renters sharing a home, as well as affecting the overall vacancy rate, and reducing rents.
Other statewide measures signed into law this month are likely helpful, but they won’t bring relief fast.
House Bill 1304 backs off of parking minimums for multi-family housing. You don’t have to drive far in Aurora to see the positive impact of this measure.
Shuttle around almost any of the city’s big and small apartment complexes early on a Sunday, when almost everyone is home, and you can see all the open asphalt where residents’ cars aren’t parked. Land, like water, is money here in Colorado, and too much land is set aside for cars that don’t exist. More apartments and fewer parking spaces really can building costs, and in theory, rents.
Will your rent go down by Christmas? Not from any of these measures.
Fewer people moving to the metroplex and more people moving away from it will push down rents quickest.
But given that Colorado, and especially the Front Range, are poised to continue to attract more people than leave the region every year, all of these bills will work to prevent the very real pain we’ve inflicted on ourselves from not taking action like this a decade ago, when it probably would have helped now.
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