YOUR AD HERE »

Colorado Senate kills languishing land-use bill from Jared Polis that aimed to boost affordable housing

The chamber will not take up the measure, Senate Bill 213, before the lawmaking term ends at 11:59 p.m., effectively shelving the legislation

Jesse Paul and Elliott Wenzler
The Colorado Sun
Gov. Jared Polis and Democratic state lawmakers introduced the Land Use bill on Wednesday, March 22, in an effort to address the statewide housing crisis.
Chris Dillmann/Vail Daily Archive

The Colorado Senate on Monday night killed the languishing land-use bill presented by Gov. Jared Polis as a long-term way to address the affordable housing crisis affecting communities from Durango to Denver to Deer Trail. 

The chamber will not take up the measure, Senate Bill 213, before the 120-day lawmaking term ends at 11:59 p.m., effectively killing the legislation. The failure was a nod to the political reality that the bill didn’t have enough votes to advance in any form in the Democratic-controlled Capitol.

“The bill is dead,” Senate Majority Leader Dominick Moreno, a Commerce City Democrat and a lead sponsor of the bill, told The Colorado Sun.



The bill started out as a mandate that cities and towns zone for greater residential density before it was pared back in the Senate to a task force. The measure was then partially resurrected in the House to increase the number of multifamily homes around bus and train stops in Colorado’s large cities. 

The Senate, however, ended the wrangling Monday night as the 2023 legislative session came to a close. With less than five hours to go in the lawmaking term, Moreno pronounced Senate Bill 213 dead.

Support Local Journalism




Democrats in the Senate were unwilling to pass the version of the bill that came out of the House on Friday, and it wasn’t clear there was enough support to advance the measure to a conference committee, where Democrats in the two chambers could have tried to work out their differences.

Read more via The Colorado Sun.


Support Local Journalism