Sunshine Home Share Colorado is a nonprofit that connects the 55-year-and-older set who have extra space in their homes with renters. And if it doesn’t find government funding or private donors soon, it will close.
As we’ve reported, many workers in Denver and beyond are finding it hard to make a living despite Colorado’s sustained economic boom. A new report provides insight about this apparent paradox by turning the spotlight on Coloradans struggling to make ends meet thanks in part to high housing costs, expensive child care and wages that have barely increased in real dollars during the past two decades.
The Hancock administration decided in January to fold the office of HOPE under the Office of Economic Development. That came along with a job posting for a new “Chief Housing Officer” that will oversee HOPE, a $20 million budget and up to twenty employees dedicated to housing issues. The job posting closed yesterday, February 12, the same day HOPE head Erik Soliván resigned.
One of Denver’s poorest neighborhoods is about to undergo a renaissance that could see it become a cultural and entertainment hub in the heart of the city over the next decade.
The changes would require that developers that want to build above a certain height in the area pay five times the city’s affordable housing fee per square footage, build a certain number of affordable housing units if it’s a residential building, or implement in any commercial development services that go toward the community, like daycare or space for artists.
Over the past couple of years, we’ve written about the proliferation in Denver of slot homes, two multi-unit buildings on a single lot that can be separated by a gap of only a few feet. Such structures are at the heart of Denver Cruisers founder Brad Evans’s campaign against fugly homes in the Mile High City, and one reader likened them to 1950s prison complexes. Denver city councilman Rafael Espinoza, who spoke to us in 2016 about the need for new rules related to garden court buildings, a variation on slot homes, was instrumental in the creation of a draft amendment to deal with the slot home phenomenon, and at a council committee meeting this morning, he’ll argue in favor of placing a moratorium on their construction.
The city’s main response to the housing crunch is a five-year plan called “Housing an Inclusive Denver,” which utilizes a $15 million a year fund that was approved by City Council in 2016. But now that amount of funding, and the urgency with which it’s being deployed, is being heavily criticized.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission wants to ban Zen magnets, but owner Shihan Qu has powerful forces on his side.
We recently shared information with you about the ten Denver neighborhoods where rent prices rose the fastest in 2017. Now, we offer the other side of the coin — the ten neighborhoods in Denver proper where rent fell by the largest percentage.
If we pay people to recycle cans, why not pay them to take public transportation?
Amazon has named Denver one of twenty finalists as a possible location for its second headquarters, HQ2, a facility that’s expected to create 50,000 new jobs and result in a $5 billion investment for the winner. But while entrepreneur and Republican candidate for governor Victor Mitchell says he thinks HQ2 would be good for the state, unlike plenty of naysayers, he’s launched an online ad campaign and petition calling on officials such as Governor John Hickenlooper not to get suckered into an expensive bidding war to secure this prize.
Rent prices have been moderating in Denver during recent months, following a long period in which rental costs continued to go up and up and up in the Mile High City’s red-hot housing market. But as we noted in a recent post revealing that median rent in Denver proper is currently lower than in eleven other metro communities, costs differ widely from place to place within the city. And new statistics about the Denver neighborhoods with the most rapid rent growth bear that out.
On the eve of his first anniversary as commander-in-chief, Donald Trump is already the worst president in U.S. history according to University of Colorado Boulder history professor Thomas Zeiler, among a team of CU historians who shared their picks for the ten poorest U.S. presidents of all time with us for a post published just prior to Trump’s inauguration last year. But Trump supporters have a very different and infinitely more positive view of the Donald’s performance, including Steve Barlock, who led the now-president’s 2016 campaign effort in Denver and is currently running as a Republican for governor of Colorado.
A proposed bill would remove the cap on out-of-state and international marijuana-industry investors. While some say the bill is necessary to keep Colorado an attractive place to do business, others are concerned about big money.
Amazon has just announced the twenty finalists for HQ2, a second headquarters for the giant company that’s expected to create 50,000 new jobs and result in a $5 billion investment for the winner. And Denver made the list, besting more than 200 other applicants.
As we’ve reported, rent prices have been moderating in Denver and its neighboring communities during recent months, following a long period in which rental costs continued to go up and up and up in the Mile High City’s red-hot housing market. As recently as last month, year-to-year rent increases in Denver were ranked among the highest in the country. So it comes as a shock to discover that two bedrooms in Denver proper are now more affordable than comparably sized units in eleven other metro-area places.
Last night, January 16, Denver Post CEO/publisher and Digital First Media executive vice president Mac Tully announced that he will resign from his positions effective January 31. His announcement to staff, included below in its entirety, follows the reintroduction of a paywall at the paper for the first time since the Aurora theater shooting trial and the ongoing move of most newsroom journalists from the Post’s longtime downtown Denver headquarters to a printing plant in Adams County.
Shorter Community AME Church was nearly packed to the brim on Saturday, January 13, when several hundred Denverites congregated there for a six-hour summit to discuss Denver’s response to gentrification.
This week, crews are removing Sports Authority signage from what has been known in recent years as Sports Authority Field at Mile High, presumably because the Denver Broncos are sick of playing in a stadium emblazoned with the name of a company that declared bankruptcy in March 2016 and liquidated all its assets a few months later. Since acquiring stadium naming rights in August of that year, Broncos executives have tried and failed to line up a new sponsor, and a branding expert says the type of tech companies most able to afford the $10 million per year the team wants are hesitant to get involved in a business relationship that could well conjure painful personal memories.
On Saturday, January 13, a new coalition will host a Gentrification Summit from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Shorter Community AME Church, located at 3100 Richard Allen Court.
Tonight, January 8, City Council is expected to approve another six-month permit for a new location for the village, which had to pay $25,000 to move 200 feet.
Most Montbello residents looking for fresh produce have to drive miles to bring home dinner ingredients. State nonprofits worked with a developer on a $10.5 million redevelopment project that will bring another grocery option to Montbello residents and, hopefully, chip away at its status as a food desert.
