HOUSING CRISIS
Density isn’t the answer
Re: “Singled out,” June 14 opinion column
Andy Bosselman’s piece suggesting that the effects of racist policies can be undone by allowing upzoning in the East Area of Denver, and painting those who oppose upzoning as a group of racists, is wrongheaded and belied the facts. Indeed, Denver East Neighborhoods First and its supporters are opposed to the upzoning proposed in the City of Denver’s East Area Plan in large part because upzoning harms the very people harmed by the racist policies of the past.
Contrary to Bosselman’s apparent belief that upzoning will solve the housing crisis and create equity, studies by Andrés Rodríguez-pose and Michael Storper of the London School of Economics, and Yohan Freemark, a doctoral student in urban planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have shown that upzoning leads to increased housing costs and the displacement of minority communities. The studies further suggest that the affordability crisis faced by Denver and other cities is attributable primarily to wage and income inequality, rather than to the over-regulation of urban housing markets.
The sections of the East Area the city has proposed to upzone are among the most affordable sections of the East Area, but they will not continue to be if the city permits affordable older single-family homes to be replaced with new more expensive multi-family units. We have seen the effects of such policies in Sloan’s Lake, the Highlands, Rino, and other neighborhoods where gentrification have pushed poor and minority families out.
Denver East Neighborhoods First has consistently called on the city to address the root causes of the housing crisis and to enact policies that will actually increase the amount of affordable housing stock. Until such policies are in place, upzoning will benefit only developers while harming the very people Bosselman and the YIMBYS claim to want to help.
For the record, Denver East Neighborhoods First has never sent any demands to the city planners. The planners did solicit recommendations (as they did with the East Colfax Neighborhood) and those recommendations were provided. Since Bosselman partially quoted from one of those recommendations, here is the full quote: “We do not support any effort to change zoning to accommodate greater density, and understand that the area can absorb the number of units the city has targeted for inclusion in the East Area without any change to zoning.”
Gary Martyn, Park Hill Jeanne Lee, Hale
Bosselman’s opinion piece surfaced a long overlooked aspect of housing access, affordability and equal opportunity for all people regardless of race. It is clear the deliberate single-family zoning decisions made by Denver’s early policy makers has today widened the social and economic gaps.
Today housing discrimination based on race and other protected classes designed to prevent people from acquiring homes in what was then largely white middle class neighborhoods is illegal. However, limiting zoning in neighborhoods to only single-family housing continues to keep out the “unwanted.”
An overwhelming number of Denver residents say they support the Black Lives Matter message and movement to stop police killings of Black persons. However, this support is inconsistent with what appears to be little or no awareness for how limiting neighborhood zoning to only single-family housing has contributed to why many protesters on America’s streets feel shut out of the opportunities others who live in these neighborhoods take for granted.
The U.S. Fair Housing Act intends to level and further affirm proactive housing policies to integrate neighborhoods to achieve equal access to high performing K-12 schools, healthier lives and build wealth through home ownership. Yet arcane local zoning laws derail access and housing affordability still for Black, Latino and other minority groups.
It is not too late for policymakers to do the right thing by outlawing single-family only zoning in Denver’s neighborhoods which will create equal housing access and opportunities for all people.
Rick M. Garcia, Denver
It just makes my head spin to hear people equate being against the East Area Plan with being racist! Many of us have chosen to live here in part because the area is integrated.
Being against the EAP isn’t about an attempt to control who lives next door; it’s about the what. Being in a neighborhood of single family homes with yards in the city is what we moved here for. To up zone our neighborhood is to take away the value of the places we call home.
If the property next door is redeveloped under the EAP neighbors loose space, privacy, parking and the very character that makes the area desirable to so many. Make no mistake, most people willing to sell their property within the EAP will most likely gain handsomely monetarily, but at personal cost to those left behind.
Dirk Turner, Denver
I want to write in support of Andy Bosselman’s piece on single-family zoning in Perspective. It is one of the most informative and well written pieces published by the Denver Post on growth issues in Colorado that I have ever read.
I would highly recommend that those proposing limiting growth in Colorado take a step back and reflect on how racist such initiatives are in light of the fact that they too prevent low-income families and people of color from securing decent affordable housing while protecting homeowners who have already secured theirs. I only wish the residents in Ward 4 of Lakewood, who overwhelmingly voted for passing Lakewood’s legislation to limit growth, had an opportunity to read Bosselman’s piece before they voted.
Louis Kolker, Lakewood