Denver Moving Quickly to Preserve Affordable Housing Stock

"The City Council is considering changes to strengthen Denver's affordable housing preservation ordinance," reports Jon Murray. "With some 4,500 housing units in the city coming open for conversion to fast-rising market-rate rents in the next five years, when their affordability covenants or restrictions expire, the revisions would give the city more leverage to keep that from happening."

Among the bills proposed changes: a provision "requiring landlords to give more notice to the city, a full year in advance, if they intend to convert a property to market-rate or sell it" and new powers granting the "city and its partners also would gain the right of first refusal to match any offer to buy a property."

The bill is meant to help implement Mayor Michael Hancock's $150 million affordable housing plan, announced at the end of August 2015. As Murray reported in an earlier article, Mayor Hancock has proposed a development impact fee and increased property taxes to help create or preserve 6,000 affordable housing units over the next ten years.