On August 25th and September 8th, the Lakewood City Council took its first two votes to move the city’s zoning code away from its segregationist past and toward a more affordable future. These were the first two of four public hearings on citywide zoning changes proposed by the recently adopted comprehensive plan. The next vote will be on October 13th. 

 

When fully passed, the new zoning code will offer a height bonus allowing an extra story to developers building apartment buildings in mixed use zones if they include 20% affordable units. It will also remove restrictive single-family zoning limits and allow a diversity of smaller and more affordable housing types, like accessory dwelling units, duplexes, and townhomes in all residential zones. 

 

Redress’s organizers worked with the Jefferson County Food Policy Council, Lakewood Left, Southwest Energy Efficiency Project (SWEEP), Together Colorado, Livable Lakewood, and other local organizations to organize rallies before the meetings and pack City Council with supporters. The strategy worked and commenters in support outnumbered Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) opponents at both meetings. 

 

In their comments, Redress organizers explained that large-lot, single-family zoning and homeowners associations are simply the most recent version of what began as very explicit housing segregation laws. In particular, segregationists popularized racially restrictive covenants, which were widely used in Lakewood until 1950, to prevent anyone but white people from buying homes.¹ When those covenants were struck down by courts, segregationists fell back on technically race-neutral policies, like large-lot, single-family zoning and an increase in HOAs to create the same effect. 

 

The architects of zoning law spoke this intention out loud. In the first court case to examine zoning, the judge acknowledged that “the single-family zone” was an attempt to prevent “the blighting of property values and the congesting of the population, whenever the colored or certain foreign races invade a residential section.”² Redress staff shared that this type of restrictive zoning was designed to preserve segregation, and it has largely worked. The council districts in Lakewood where single-family zoning predominates are still the whitest areas of the city.

 

In the face of these historical facts, opponents of the zoning update relied on fear mongering, arguing that duplexes and townhomes would kill wildlife and threaten horse farms. Many also suggested the new zoning rules would stimulate so much housing construction it would “ruin” their neighborhoods, but also that it wouldn’t create enough units to reduce prices. 

 

What is true is that restrictive zoning has limited housing supply, pushed up prices, and entrenched segregation in metro areas for decades. Removing exclusionary zoning is the first step, but it won’t eliminate Lakewood’s - or any city’s - housing crisis overnight. 

 

Zoning sets the rules for what is allowed, but it doesn’t compel anyone to build more diverse housing types or to price them in ways that would dramatically change racial and income diversity. Still, in places that have reformed their zoning, like Austin, TX and Minneapolis, MN, a slow but steady increase in the supply of homes have slowed price increases or even reversed them.³ Those changes are essential to ensure that metro areas don’t lose middle and working class families only to become gated enclaves of the wealthy. 

This is only half the solution though. Experts agree that zoning changes and increases in the housing supply alone will never meet the needs of lower-income families. And because our history of denying Black and other families of color access to homeownership and wealth building means that these groups disproportionately make up cost-burdened households, zoning changes alone will not end segregation. Housing supply changes must always be paired with generous housing subsidies to ensure low-income families and families of color can access well-resourced communities, like Lakewood. At Redress, we’ve partnered with the Jefferson County Food Policy Council to craft a Justice and Resilience Legislative Plan with goals and strategies that align with the Lakewood Comprehensive Plan. We’re actively working toward a number of these strategies, including funding community land trusts, protecting tenants from eviction, and expanding access to supportive housing. 

 

The new zoning updates take the first step toward unlocking more subsidies by including a height bonus for affordable housing developers and bringing the city closer to receiving money from the state affordable housing trust fund through Proposition 123.⁴ We strongly encourage the Lakewood City Council to finalize the remaining zoning updates, while also beginning to dedicate some of their own local dollars to building a more affordable and inclusive city. 

 

 

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Endnotes:

¹Christopher Thiry, “Race-based property covenants in Jefferson County, Colorado,” Colorado School of Mines, June 2, 2023, https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/ac9e44dad1be4e04ac94fdb182f0c5d3.

²Ambler Realty Co. v. Village of Euclid, Ohio, 297 F. 307, 313 (N.D. Ohio 1924), reversed, Village of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty, 272 U.S. 365 (1926), https://opencasebook.org/casebooks/5627-land-use-law/resources/1.1.4.2-ambler-realty-co-v-village-of-euclid-trial-court-decision/.

³Elissa Chudwin, “Rapid Growth Overwhelmed Austin. These Housing Reforms Made a Difference,” American Planning Association, June 30th, 2025, www.planning.org/blog/9313264/rapid-growth-overwhelmed-austin-these-housing-reforms-made-a-difference/; Linlin Liang, Adam Staveski, and Alex Horowitz, “Minneapolis Land Use Reforms Offer a Blueprint for Housing Affordability,” Pew.org, January 4, 2024, www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2024/01/04/minneapolis-land-use-reforms-offer-a-blueprint-for-housing-affordability.

⁴“About Proposition 123,” Colorado Department of Local Affairs, 2025, https://cdola.colorado.gov/about-proposition-123.