HOME Act: State Power Grab Over Local Land Use

If you ever wondered how the Denver/Boulder Bubble “solves” problems, The Denver Post just gave you the playbook: take power from local communities, call it streamlined, and act shocked when people get mad.

The Colorado House passed HB26-1001, the HOME Act, letting nonprofits, school districts, and transit agencies build housing on their own land without local government approval. It passed 35-24 and now heads to the Senate.

Let’s not pretend this is some neutral efficiency tweak. It is the state deciding your neighborhood input is an inconvenience that needs to be engineered out of the process.

The Bullet Point Brief

HB26-1001 passed the Colorado House 35-24 and moves to the Senate.
It allows certain entities to build housing on their land by right, without local government approval.
Covered entities include school districts, higher education, housing authorities, and transit agencies.
Other nonprofits could build housing if they partner with a peer organization with a demonstrated history of providing affordable housing.
If enacted, it would take effect Dec. 31, 2027.

My Bottom Line

Here’s no surprise: the Colorado House is stripping away local land use authority, and they are doing it with the same smug logic they always use. If people disagree, the system is supposed to “streamline” them into silence. How convenient.

You are losing your chance to comment on developments in your neighborhood, and the sales pitch is basically: don’t worry your little head, the experts have it handled. Sure, because the state legislature always knows better than you do what’s best for you. In their world, accountability is optional, and paperwork is forever.

Translated: this is a top-down power grab dressed up as housing policy.

This is abhorrent. If it worked, they wouldn’t need to muzzle the public.

Want a better path? Keep housing conversations local, make approvals faster without erasing the public process, and judge every proposal by basics that reality does not negotiate: infrastructure capacity, traffic, safety, and who pays long-term when the ribbon-cutting is over. We can build housing and respect neighbors at the same time. The only thing that cannot coexist is “local control” and Denver’s habit of preempting it.

Source: The Denver Post