How Colorado's housing-supply politics contradict the ‘abundance' narrative

Yahoo

09-05-2025

Gov. Jared Polis speaks about a sweeping housing policy that was set to be introduced in the Legislature, in March 2023 at the state Capitol in Denver. (Sara Wilson/Colorado Newsline)
Colorado's 2025 legislative session, which ended Wednesday, was another mixed bag for those who want to make it easier to build more housing units and solve the state's affordability crisis.
Connecting the news in Colorado to the big picture.
It's been three years since Gov. Jared Polis embraced the YIMBY movement — short for 'Yes In My Back Yard' — and made 'More Housing Now' a signature goal of his second term.
Polis' first big YIMBY priority was an audacious 2023 bill to reform land use policies and require higher-density development across the state, including by abolishing single-family zoning in Colorado's most populous cities and towns. That proposal landed like a lead balloon in the state Legislature, where it was gradually watered down before being killed entirely in the final days of the 2023 session.
In the wake of the bill's defeat, proponents have revived parts of it in piecemeal fashion, successfully passing bills last year to require higher-density housing near transit stops, legalize the construction of accessory dwelling units in most circumstances, and prohibit local minimum parking requirements. But resistance to YIMBY policies has remained strong. Skeptical lawmakers have stripped reform legislation of enforcement mechanisms, and local officials in several large Colorado municipalities have signaled they won't comply with some of the new requirements.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
The latest YIMBY disappointment came this week with the defeat of House Bill 25-1169, which would have overridden local zoning codes to presumptively allow faith-based organizations and educational institutions to build multifamily housing developments on their land. The bill, dubbed the 'Yes In God's Back Yard' measure, passed the state House of Representatives in March but stalled in the final days of the legislative session as its sponsors acknowledged it lacked enough votes in the Senate.
The YIGBY bill had a lot in common with other housing bills taken up by the General Assembly in the last few years. Its sponsors included two of the statehouse's most progressive lawmakers in Sen. Julie Gonzales and Rep. Javier Mabrey, both Denver Democrats. It was backed by a long list of environmental, labor and social justice organizations. It passed the House over opposition from Republicans and a handful of moderate Democrats, and faced hurdles in the Senate, where the business lobby and a larger bloc of centrist lawmakers tend to exert their influence.
This has become a familiar pattern in Colorado politics. But it's notably at odds with many of the presumptions of an intraparty debate currently flaring up among Democrats and left-leaning commentators at the national level, as they seek a path forward after a stinging defeat in the 2024 election.
A loose affiliation of pundits and politicians, critical of what they see as certain shortcomings of Democratic governance, have sought to articulate an alternative approach under the banner of 'abundance.' The buzzword was the title of an October 2024 conference held in Washington, D.C., by influential centrist organizations like the Niskanen Center and the Breakthrough Institute, as well as a best-selling book this year by liberal authors Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson.
Abundance, in short, encompasses what Klein also calls 'a liberalism that builds' — more housing to bring down rents and home prices, more industry to create jobs and protect supply chains, more clean energy and transit infrastructure to reduce climate pollution. This vision has resonated with some powerful Democrats: Klein was invited to be a guest at U.S. Senate Democrats' annual retreat this week, Axios reported, and Polis himself has described his governing philosophy as an effort to bring the 'abundance agenda' to Colorado.
Blame for the failure to build, in the abundance crowd's telling, often falls on what Klein and like-minded pundits have taken to calling simply 'the groups' — an epithet of sorts for labor unions, environmental nonprofits and other organizations on the Democratic Party's progressive left wing. 'The groups,' they say, have stood in the way of progress on key issues by saddling Democratic policy initiatives with unpopular ideological goals, or by erecting too many regulatory or procedural barriers via legislation and the courts.
But if three years of battles over housing policy at the Colorado statehouse have proved anything, it's that 'the groups' can be willing, enthusiastic members of the YIMBY coalition, and political obstacles to a drastic increase in housing supply are far more likely to be found on the right and center of the political spectrum than the left.
Beginning with the ambitious 2023 land use bill, virtually every YIMBY-endorsed housing proposal taken up by lawmakers lately has enjoyed the support of a loose network of climate and environmental advocacy groups that includes the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, Conservation Colorado, the Colorado Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, 350 Colorado and others. Other progressive groups focused on economic policy or social justice — 9to5 Colorado, the Bell Policy Center, the Colorado Fiscal Institute, the League of Women Voters, Servicios de la Raza, Together Colorado and many more — have also frequently lobbied for the bills, records show.
The most vocal and consistent opponent of these measures has been the Colorado Municipal League, the organization representing the governments of the state's 271 cities and towns. In a few cases, influential business groups and local chambers of commerce have supported some of the changes, but in many others they have opposed, sought to amend or taken no position, according to lobbying records.
In floor and committee votes, Republican lawmakers have been nearly unanimously opposed to the most sweeping changes, while skepticism from Democratic moderates has repeatedly resulted in concessions, including the multiple exemptions granted to mountain towns like those represented by state Sen. Dylan Roberts and House Speaker Julie McCluskie.
Though a handful of exceptions and ideological cross-currents may exist, the broad political alignment on these issues could hardly be clearer. As Polis and other advocates for 'More Housing Now' continue to pursue that goal, their allies and their opponents are easy to spot — and in Colorado, at least, the abundance crowd seems to have it exactly backwards.
The Trendline offers analysis on public policy in Colorado. Articles explore ways to think about the news based on research, history and other important context, helping Coloradans connect the headlines to the big picture.
SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE