Denver is at it again, and this time the target is not just big commercial buildings. In The Denver Gazette, reporter Scott Weiser lays out how the city launched a public process on Feb. 26, 2026 to update its energy code for new and renovated small buildings, including single-family homes and duplexes.
The update would extend Denver’s efficiency and “electrification-readiness” standards, which started with large commercial and multifamily buildings in 2023, into the housing types normal people actually live in. It is the predictable next step of the city’s Energize Denver framework, and builders have been warning for years that this would eventually land right in the single-family market.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Denver kicked off a public process to update the energy code, and yes, it explicitly includes single-family homes and duplexes now. So much for “don’t worry about it.”
- The city’s 2021 Energize Denver ordinance started with energy benchmarking and reductions for buildings 25,000 square feet or more, then expanded into broader compliance goals. Translation: it never stays “just the big guys.”
- Back in 2023, a city spokesperson told The Denver Gazette that single-family homeowners and landlords did not have to worry because the new commercial code only applied to apartments, condos, and townhouses. That aged like milk.
- Builders and groups like the Colorado Association of Home Builders warned the mandates could add thousands of dollars per new home, hammering supply and affordability. Ted Leighty from the Home Builders Association of Metro Denver flat-out tied compliance costs to making homeownership less attainable for working families.
- Denver already banned new gas furnaces and water heaters in commercial and multifamily construction starting in 2024, with a full prohibition on gas heating and cooling equipment in commercial buildings by 2027. Multiple industry groups sued, and those cases are still pending.
My Bottom Line
This has to stop. It must. This is exactly the kind of down-in-the-weeds policymaking that escapes the great suburban normie until the bill shows up, taped right to the closing documents.
When the virtue signalers running local government decide they are going to “save the planet” through building code, what they really do is jack up the price of housing. Builders warned them years ago. Industry groups warned them again when Denver started banning gas equipment and the lawsuits started flying. The city’s answer is the same every time: trust us, it will be “modern” and “effective,” and also somehow “affordable.”
Here is the part that should make every normal family furious. Out of one side of their mouth comes the sad little speech about “housing affordability.” Out of the other comes a steady drip of mandates that add thousands in construction costs, squeeze supply, and turn starter homes into luxury products.
And after they help push prices even higher, they will roll out the next act of the same circus: a shiny “government program” stuffed with taxpayer dollars that promises to fix the affordability crisis they helped create. It will not lower housing costs. It will, however, employ a whole herd of bureaucrats whose job is to manage the mess.
These people are not serious about governing. They are serious about feeling righteous. Until the great suburban normie connects the dots and realizes that these self-righteous Democrats are making housing more expensive on purpose, nothing changes.
Source: The Denver Gazette
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