Aurora and five suburban cities are suing the state of Colorado and Gov. Jared Polis in an attempt to block two land-use bills passed last year that seek to build more housing.
The lawsuit was filed in Denver District Court on Monday by the cities of Arvada, Aurora, Glendale, Greenwood Village, Lafayette and Westminster.
They argue that two bills signed into law by Polis in 2024 — which seek to increase density and eliminate parking requirements near transit stops — violate the provision of the Colorado Constitution that gives local governments the authority to set rules within their own jurisdictions.
The municipalities also contend that an executive order signed by Polis on Friday is unconstitutional. In that order, the governor directed several state agencies to prioritize giving more than $100 million in various state grants to cities that comply with the recent land-use reforms, including those challenged in the lawsuit.
In statements, officials from some of the cities that filed the lawsuit accused the state and lawmakers of stripping local residents of their voice in local planning decisions, in favor of what the opponents called a “one-size-fits-all” approach.
Kevin Bommer, the head of the Colorado Municipal League, accused the legislature and Polis of bullying local governments.
“The city is the one that has the master plan and is making that all happen, and it’s done with their citizens,” Westminster Mayor Nancy McNally said in an interview Monday afternoon. “There’s nothing else but local control at the hub of why we jumped in and said, ‘This is wrong,’ and told our staff they weren’t to comply with those laws.”
In a statement, Polis spokeswoman Shelby Wieman accused the local governments of trying to block housing development, and she said the governor’s office was “confident a court will rule in the state’s favor.”
The two laws being challenged were both passed by the legislature and signed into law by Polis last year. The parking bill directs certain municipalities to eliminate requirements that some developments include a prescribed number of parking spots, which eats up space and drives up costs. The transit bill requires local officials to set goals for denser housing development — and then craft plans to hit those goals — for areas near transit stops.
“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,” Wieman wrote. “It’s clear this lawsuit is about preventing more housing from being built that Coloradans can afford.”
The lawsuit makes good on local governments’ threats to challenge Polis’ growing embrace of regional land-use reform. Since 2023, lawmakers have passed several bills to increase density, eliminate parking requirements, remove occupancy limits and growth caps, and allow for accessory-dwelling units to be built. Just last week, Polis signed a new law allowing taller developments to be built around one staircase.
In their bid to increase development, the reforms largely leapfrog existing local processes, including local residents’ ability to weigh in at meetings or launch campaigns to slow reforms. Most of the new legislation, including both of the laws challenged in Monday’s lawsuit, is targeted almost entirely at cities along the Front Range, at the exclusion of most rural areas and the resort communities that have significant housing crises of their own.
Some of the legislation has not yet taken effect: The parking bill challenged in Monday’s suit kicks in on June 30, as do some of the early provisions of the transit-density law.
The governor — together with a coalition of Democratic lawmakers, business groups and pro-development housing advocates — has argued the reforms will help address Colorado’s housing shortage of tens of thousands of apartments and homes. They contend that local governments have resisted building denser housing or have instituted burdensome zoning requirements, often at the behest of local residents leery of more development.
Development in Westminster, for instance, has see-sawed as local support and opposition for more housing has swung like a pendulum. A 2023 assessment in Arvada found that “workers have nowhere to live within the city” and that stakeholders thought the suburb “was placing a development burden on affordable projects.”
Supporters of the reforms argue that allowing for more and easier development will ratchet up the state’s supply of housing and, in turn, lower the cost of both rental and for-sale units and properties. Last year, national housing experts praised the state for adopting the policies, though they cautioned they would need careful tending and implementation to bear fruit.
But in their lawsuit, the six cities argue that the reforms are not only unconstitutional, but they’ll also be ineffective. The cities contend that they’ve already oversupplied multi-family housing in their areas and that the state needs to allocate money to provide subsidized housing for lower-income residents.
“This is not about dismissing the need for affordable housing,” Arvada City Councilman Brad Rupert said in a statement. “It is about ensuring that municipalities can continue to address this critical need in a way that is appropriate to their local communities, according to the right to Home Rule enshrined by the Constitution.”
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