Resident generated news about Lakewood, Colorado
Resident generated news about Lakewood, Colorado
Residents Fighting Back Against Zoning Changes Across the country, cities and states are experimenting with new taxes on so-called “luxury” homes. The pitch is simple: target properties above a certain value, often $1 million or more, and funnel the money into local programs. But the reality is far more complicated—and the impacts often hit ordinary homeowners, not just the wealthy.
Million-Dollar Home Taxes: A Warning for Lakewood Across the country, cities and states are experimenting with new taxes on so-called “luxury” homes. The pitch is simple: target properties above a certain value, often $1 million or more, and funnel the money into local programs. But the reality is far more complicated—and the impacts often hit ordinary homeowners, not just the wealthy. Examples nationwide • Los Angeles voters approved Measure ULA in 2022, adding transfer taxes on sales over $5 million. The city projected $600M annually but collected under $200M in the first year. A UCLA study found multifamily housing production dropped about 18% after ULA • Chicago’s “Bring Chicago Home” referendum failed in March 2024, 52.3% to 47.7%, after voters rejected a tiered transfer tax proposal • Washington State raised its Real Estate Excise Tax (REET) to 3% on the portion of sales above $3.025M • New York State imposes a 1% mansion tax on sales above $1M and an additional graduated surcharge on properties above $2M • New Jersey adjusted its mansion tax in 2025, shifting liability to sellers and expanding applicability • Connecticut charges a 2.25% marginal conveyance tax on the portion of home sales above $2.5M • Santa Fe voters approved a 3% transfer tax on home sales above $1M, but a judge later struck it down as unconstitutional under state law • Honolulu assesses higher property tax rates on non-owner-occupied homes above $1M under its “Residential A” classification • Rhode Island enacted a statewide “property wealth...
City Council decided to break up the zoning code into four separate public hearings. There will now be 4 separate ordinances that will have second readings on separate dates. Council expressed the strong desire to have voting completed BEFORE the November elections. These changes are big enough to be an election issue, but City Council is taking that off the table by guaranteeing that residents’ votes will not matter for zoning changes. The new dates for second reading are: The original motion was to delay the second reading and also break up the code into digestible pieces. There was more talk of making the code easier to understand than there was of making changes, but the break-up was mostly agreeable. However, with some Councilors disagreeing with the delay, that was changed to maintain a second reading on the Aug 25 date for the first piece. It is unclear if Council is hearing opposition from residents or whether Council believes people just don’t understand what’s going on. “Education” was mentioned several times. Councilor Low read off many city “touchpoints” that would indicate everyone had been informed enough, and any delay was unjustified. About half the council, including Councilors Mayott-Guerrero and Shahrezaei, argued that people were expecting the second reading on August 25 and may not understand that the dates had changed so that wasn’t an option. In reality, even this first reading was delayed due to pressure against these sweeping changes, so that argument was unconvincing. Several Councilors mentioned that they...
Lakewood is adding a new word to the dictionary — an innocuous move that covers up a dedicated zoning change for the Emory-Action Center swap while also shutting down future resident protests. Lakewood is planning on adding a new “Community Resource Facility” use to the zoning code to enable an “Amazon” warehouse-type low-income distribution center to operate anywhere in Lakewood. This new use is necessary for changes to the Emory Elementary property that Lakewood proposes to sell or exchange with the Action Center, which will convert it into a “Community Resource Facility”. That swap is not mentioned in the May 19th meeting on the zoning code change, even though the swap is what prompted the change in the first place. To listen to that meeting, one would think that there has just been a glaring oversight for the past 50 years, and no non-profits have been able to operate food pantries. Taken in isolation, residents could be forgiven for thinking that Lakewood didn’t have the ability to allow what is clearly already allowed in multiple places. Therefore, once again, residents must dig deeper to understand what is going on. In this case, allowing high populations of low-income support services in every zone in the city, including those previously reserved for schools. (For background, read Lakewood news at https://lakewoodinformer.com/springsteen-files-injunction-regarding-emory/) Travis Parker, Chief of Planning and Community Development, says Lakewood hasn’t had a request for something like this during his time with Lakewood, which may give residents an idea of the scale...
From Crash Davis You’ll hear it all the time, especially from pundits and politicians: “The solution to the housing crisis is simple. Just build more.” It sounds nice. It fits on a bumper sticker. But it’s not the full story. Not even close. We’re not just short on homes. We’ve built an entire system where housing has become the best way to build wealth, and where insiders control access to that wealth. I was talking to a friend the other day, and he mentioned a few people he knew who were doing very well financially. Every single one of them had made their money in real estate. That says a lot. Here in Colorado, you see the distortion everywhere. In Lakewood, homes are sitting on the market. The “supply” is technically there, but prices still start around $500,000 and go well past $1.4 million. That’s not a starter home. That’s not attainable for most working families. And it’s not just because we didn’t build enough. It’s because we’ve flooded the system with easy money for decades. It didn’t start with the pandemic. That just poured fuel on a fire that had already been burning since the financial crisis, the dot-com bust, and even before. Every time the economy hiccups, we inject liquidity, drop interest rates, and do whatever it takes to prop up asset values. The result is a distorted market where real estate becomes a magnet for cash, speculation, and institutional investment. Now we’re sitting on the flip side....
From Jim Kinney Friends and neighbors, I hope you all have had a chance to study the draft City of Lakewood Zoning Code being pushed forward by what appears to be the majority of City Council, the Mayor, and the City Manager and the Director of Planning. The new code is being “sold” as the answer to fix the problem that our City needs affordable housing. Minneapolis was the first city in the nation to abandon the single family zoning category, in about 2018, thinking that action was the answer to magically have the city filled with affordable housing. The article, Counterpoint: Upending Single-family Zoning Isn’t the Answer: Like many zombie ideas, the idea that zoning changes will magically provide abundant affordable housing just doesn’t die, was written by Linda McDonald, of Minneapolis, who is a former City Council member and is one of the founding members of the citizen group Minneapolis For Everyone. The following quote is taken from her article (my highlighting). “In addition, the Urban Institute found no evidence that more low-cost housing was built, or that lower-cost housing became less expensive when zoning was reduced. This isn’t surprising. The real reason new housing is so expensive is that the costs to build — lumber, copper, labor, etc. — have been increasing much faster than inflation. The private marketplace simply cannot produce deeply affordable housing, the housing critical for truly low-income persons. In Minneapolis, there has been an increase in deeply affordable housing, but only because the...
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