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Why We Lack Affordable Housing

The Common Sense Institute just released a new report on Colorado’s lack of affordable housing and why housing costs will continue to increase due to upcoming new regulations that will electrify housing and commercial construction. Here is what they found—
· Colorado grew by 1.47 million people from 2000 to 2020.
· The state demographer’s office is predicting CO will grow by another 717k with 88% of that population growth along the Front Range. This means an additional 631k people along the Front Range.
· Population growth of 717k will require at least 287k new housing units to be built assuming an average household size of 2.5.
· They estimate CO’s housing deficit at 196k units and they are worried this deficit could hit over 500k by 2031.

Thus, we don’t have enough housing units being built and this lack of supply has caused home prices and rents to soar; but the news is even worse for people who desire affordable housing. In the last year our legislature and Governor have signed into law these 2 bills—

· HB22-1362, Building Greenhouse Gas Emissions will require the adoption of model energy codes that will cost an additional estimated $6,450 to $22,352 per new home.
· HB22-1362 “seeks to reduce reliance on natural gas in new residential and commercial buildings.” Instead, new homes will be required to operate only on electricity with no natural gas being used. It’s estimated this will cost an additional $36k to $42k per housing units.