Opinion: ‘One size fits all’ densification of transit corridors bill has serious flaws

House Bill 24-1313, or Housing in Transit-Oriented Communities, which is now at the state Senate, is the successor to the pro-growth bill that failed to pass at the end of last year’s session. That bill generated a lot of substantive objections, especially over the loss of local control over how much and what kind of growth Colorado communities wanted. Unfortunately, this 70-page bill is not much better. And it’s so complicated that just the administrative costs will be substantial. Here’s my attempt to identify some of its many issues.

This bill basically attempts to leverage communities with significant transit service to allow massive densification, up to 40 units per acre, of areas within a half mile of certain transit stops. That’s way above the typical low-density neighborhood with maybe four to six units per acre. It threatens to cut off certain federal highway funds or legally force communities to comply if its goals are not achieved.

The bill exempts many areas from its high-density housing requirement, including federal and state-owned land, industrial areas, parks, etc. But it doesn’t exempt, for example, shopping centers, downtown office areas, business parks, restaurants, etc. This creates a bizarre situation, where HB1313 encourages/forces high-density residential development near transit stops, but also pushes displacing these same transit users’ destinations with yet more housing development.

The bill is completely silent on how much land would be subject to this densification. Would it increase the Front Range population by a few hundred thousand … or by a few million? For what it’s worth, the State Demographer projects the Front Range to have 6.3 million people by 2050, up from the current approximately 5 million. 

But the Forbes survey I quoted in an earlier column says that 17% of people in the U.S. have Denver as their number one “most desired place to live.” That’s around 57 million. If only one in five make it here, that’s an additional 11-plus million. That would more than triple the Front Range population.

The bill’s unstated assumption is that most of these new folks would use transit to commute. Otherwise, their driving would overwhelm the current road system, requiring massive widening projects and other expenditures of non-existent tax revenues.

To put some numbers to it, the Denver area workforce is around 1.75 million. As best as I can determine, RTD handles something like 235,000 trips per day, or, say, 115,000 commuters at two trips per day, plus some single-trip riders. Thus, these commuters represent around 6.5% of the total workforce; the rest (93.5%) currently drive, carpool, bike, walk or work at home. 

Suppose HB1313 increased the workforce by, say, 500,000. The bill’s focus on transit apparently presumes that almost all new workers use RTD to avoid massive congestion and pollution increases. That’s a 435% increase in RTD’s commuters!

But fares account for only 5% ($62.3 million) of RTD’s current $1.246 billion dollar budget. Seventy-five percent is from sales and use taxes, and the other 20% is mostly grants. Even if RTD’s passengers per bus or train goes way up, RTD’s budget will have to increase very significantly. But the bill is silent on who will pay for that. 

Transit would have to be convenient (and inexpensive) if work is not close. But the bill makes no effort to put jobs near people. And what if people change jobs, and the new commute is not convenient? That means cars, which means parking spaces. But the bill does not address this scenario, nor the diffuse nature of jobs all over the metro area. 

I still see a serious long-term issue regarding the security of the junior water rights that serve trans-mountain diversions from the Colorado River to many of the major Front Range cities. The bill argues that multi-unit housing is more water-efficient per capita. But you can’t Xeriscape toilets. Also, the bill’s test of supply adequacy apparently only looks at the last three years. But what happens if, five or ten years down the road, those trans-mountain supplies are dramatically cut? The bill doesn’t seem to consider this.

The bill does require housing affordability strategies, but strangely has no quantitative requirements. As we have learned in Boulder, that is the most critical piece. If percentages are too low, then the ability to maintain some semblance of economic diversity is lost.

These issues, plus many, many more, tell me that the Senate should reject this bill. And the legislators should maybe consider that they might not know what’s best for everyone everywhere.

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