Lakewood clerk strikes down challenge to initiative limiting housing growth

An effort to disqualify a measure proposed for the November ballot that would limit new home construction in Lakewood was turned aside by the city Monday.

The matter now goes to the City Council, which will decide whether to put the measure into effect immediately or refer it to the ballot this fall. The initiative would cap new housing units in the city to a 1 percent annual growth rate and require that the council approve or reject projects of 40 or more units.

Margy Greer, clerk and recorder for Colorado’s fifth-largest city, concluded in her 16-page ruling that the protester’s primary assertion that growth-limit advocates who collected signatures weren’t properly sworn in when they turned in their petitions to the city was without merit.

The protest, filed in August by Lakewood resident Steve Dorman, claimed that the petitions’ circulators submitted were defective because they didn’t contain the words “oath” or “sworn,” instead using the word “acknowledged.”

“The proponents used the form that had been approved by the clerk in 2017 and that had been used in at least three other Lakewood initiative efforts in the recent past,” Greer countered. “No evidence was adduced at hearing to suggest that circulators used an acknowledgment in order to avoid an oath or to avoid accountability for their actions.”

She also put aside a challenge Dorman brought that the language in the petition’s summary was insufficient to describe to those who signed it what the measure would do. Greer said the summary “adequately informed petition signers of the subject of the initiative without addressing details of the measure.”

Her office had determined this summer that a sufficient number of valid signatures had been turned in to move the initiative forward.

The growth-limit measure took center stage this month as Lakewood held two hearings to determine its validity.

At a Sept. 7 proceeding, Dorman’s attorney called dozens of canvassers to testify whether they had been sworn in by a notary when dropping off their petitions. Nearly all said they hadn’t but asserted that they believed the affidavit they signed was the equivalent of a sworn document.

Cathy Kentner, who is spearheading the Lakewood Strategic Growth Initiative, said the clerk’s ruling affirms “the right of the people to have their say.”

“We look forward to a challenging campaign after it’s placed on the ballot,” she wrote in an email Monday evening. “The opposition is already filling the coffers of pro-development candidates, and I’m sure they will mount a high-dollar, high-pressure campaign to sell their unlimited growth stance.”

Cassie Tanner, who represents Lakewood United for Responsible Growth, fired back by calling the measure a “Boulder-style anti-growth ordinance” that “will make it more expensive for working families and seniors to live in Lakewood.”

She said her group will launch a digital ad campaign against the measure — featuring Lakewood Mayor Adam Paul — starting Tuesday.