As Lakewood passes ambitious zoning reforms, neighbors debate the city's future
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LAKEWOOD, Colo. — A 398-page zoning reform in a Denver suburb might sound like a snoozefest at first glance.
But to the 76 neighbors who’ve spoken before Lakewood City Council about the proposal to allow greater density across town, the debate is about the future of the city, its affordability and its character.
“Nobody likes to talk about zoning,” said Karen Miller, a resident in the Eiber neighborhood. “It’s like stabbing a fork in your eye ball, but it’s very important, so we have to get people talking about it.”
Monday’s decision determined a future of more housing options including duplexes and more renting options for Lakewood’s growing population.
“We really need zoning reform that makes our city more equitable and sustainable for everyone who wants to live here,” said Roger Low, a Lakewood City Council member representing Ward 3 on the eastern part of town.
The council divided 398 pages of ordinances into four votes through October. The first section passed its first vote August 25, requiring shared driveways on lots with three or more units and eliminating parking minimums near RTD train stations.
“We’re taking steps that will hopefully set us up for a future where everyone who wants to live in Lakewood can,” Low said.
On Tuesday, the city set new rules increasing the number of homes built on residential lots.
Starting in January 2026, duplexes, triplexes and four-plexes will be allowed in new residential zones. Some neighborhoods, like Belmar and Two Creeks, already allow them — the change expands those options citywide.
The council still has to vote on creating the new residential zoning districts at its September 22 meeting and approve the map for the locations of the zoning districts at its October 13 meeting.
“This is going to bring people out of poverty and into stages of wealth by providing places to live,” said Rev. Ben Hensley, the lead pastor at Lakewood United Methodist Church.
Hensley encouraged his congregation members to speak to the council about upzoning.
“Zoning, in some ways, creates invisible walls about who can be our neighbor and who can’t,” Hensley said. “And we want more people to have the opportunity to be our neighbors.”
The new rules also cap building sizes at 4,000 square feet for one or two units, and 5,000 square feet for three or more. This makes some districts more restrictive than before, since homes as large as 18,000 square feet were previously possible.
The upzoning debate stands out because of the unusually high level of public engagement, said Low.
In Lakewood’s most restrictive residential zone district, the rules will actually loosen, allowing duplexes, townhomes and up to four-plexes where they weren’t previously permitted.
Dozens of residents have attended City Council meetings, filling the chambers, while even more have written to Low. Most back the changes, though some fear it could erode the small-town character they’ve long associated with the west Denver suburb, he said.
“Engagement just is not this high when we talk about other issues,” Low said. “It’s especially inspiring to see so many young people coming out because they recognize this makes a real difference for their future in this city.”
The reforms are a desperately needed solution to an affordable housing crisis, said Robert Adams, a Lakewood resident who lives near O’Kane Park.
“This gives us an opportunity to really build things up in an equitable way that could make a huge difference for decades, if not longer,” Adams said.
Adams and his wife purchased their home in 2023 for about $650,000, near the top-end of their budget. They plan to spend decades in the house and raise their 3- and 6-year-old kids in the city.
More affordable housing gives Adams hope that his children could one day afford to live in their hometown, as well as bring more young families to the community.
“We plan to be here for a long time and it feels really important to participate in the civic engagement process of making this city better,” he said.
A report from Data USA, a platform developed by the MIT media lab that visualizes public data, found Lakewood home prices have increased about 15% year over year since 2020.
Livable Lakewood, a resident-led group that Adams co-founded, mobilized residents across the city to speak out in support of upzoning. The hope is that more housing will equal cheaper housing, Adams said.
A 2023 Middlebury College study on a sweeping upzoning effort in Minneapolis, which began in 2018, found rent prices dropped between 17% to 34% in the five years after the city rezoned to allow multifamily housing in every residential zone.
“Decades ago, the American dream was to buy a house, raise a family in it and then downsize when you no longer needed that much space,” Adams said.
“Colorado as a whole is lacking that missing middle housing and that’s what building more multi-family housing could improve.”
Lakewood residents in Green Mountain and Eiber — two of the wealthiest, most rural and oldest neighborhoods in the city — have called the proposed upzoning a “threat” to the city’s character.
“We don’t want people to come in and start building these monstrosities where they don’t fit,” said Karen Gordey, a Ward 5 resident and candidate for the city council.
“You can see a world where there’s duplexes where they don’t make sense, renters where they don’t make sense, cars all over the street and it just becomes a nightmare,” she said.
Gordey’s house, which she and her wife bought in 2011, sits on a quiet cul-de-sac near Bear Creek High School surrounded by single-family homes. On a Tuesday afternoon, the bright red truck in her driveway was one of the only cars in sight. She likes to sit outside and enjoy the sound of birds chirping.
“Once you have renters, you have people coming and going all the time and it’s loud and just changes the look and feel of a neighborhood,” Gordey said.
At the first upzoning vote, most commenters remained civil but Gordey said she was troubled by those who dismissed her and others with similar views as “NIMBYs,” an acronym for “Not in my backyard,” a term coined in 1979 to describe residents opposing projects such as housing, homeless shelters or public transit in their neighborhoods.
“I’m not anti-growth,I just want growth in a way that makes sense,” Gordey said.
“We’re looking at what other US cities have done and none of them have it right.”
Gordey pointed to right-wing Argentina President Javier Milei’s housing policies that include annual rent adjustments based on inflation and cutting rent control, which Colorado bans statewide, as examples of success.
Developers will have flexibility in what they build — whether that’s condominiums for individual buyers or apartments intended for renters according to the new zoning.
But those who’ve spoken out against the reforms believe building multifamily units, such as duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes, will likely usher in more renters. More renters means less residents invested in the city’s future, Miller argued.
“When you want to develop a demographic that doesn't have a stake in the future of this city, I’m worried that everything will go on the decline and no one will be interested in developing the future of Lakewood,” Miller said.
Miller bought her home in the Eiber neighborhood in February 1997 for $211,000. All four of her children attended Lakewood schools, she knows all of her neighbors by name and believes they all have a stake in the future of their neighborhood. She said people whose residency in the neighborhood may be temporary would not have the same level of care.
The city should build more single-family homes available for purchase, said Lynnda Gies, a Lakewood resident who bought her first home in the city in 1970 for $198,000. The house sits on about a half acre of land, and she’s added two extra garages, as well as several renovations to the house. She estimates it’s now worth about $800,000.
“You have to build things people can buy for the pride of ownership,” Gies said.
Gies has two daughters and six grandchildren who all live in Jefferson County. Building homes for purchase is the solution for children being able to afford their hometown, she believes.
“You can’t expect people to pay rent to someone else for the rest of their lives,” Gies said. “That’s not how the American Dream works.”
But renting in a community can inspire a different kind of care for one’s future in the city, said Frannie Monestario, who has rented a room in Lakewood since 2021.
“I don’t know why my being a renter would make me less invested,” Monestario said. “This is our city, too.”
Monestario moved to Colorado from Richmond, Virginia, in 2018 for a data analysis job in Boulder.
After three years in Boulder, she moved to Lakewood and now rents a room in a friend’s home for $200, a deal she knew would be impossible to come by elsewhere. She volunteers in the city, has made friends with her neighbors and can walk to shops at Lamar Station across the street from her house.
“I’d love to buy someday and maybe I’d even buy a duplex or a condo,” Monasterio said. “Welcoming that kind of housing brings opportunities, both for renting and owning, since not everyone wants a giant house with a yard.”
Inclusive zoning could undo ramifications of decades-old redlining policies, said Jon Marcantoni, a Lakewood resident and campaign organizer for the Denver chapter of The Redress Movement, a national organization that works to redress racial segregation.
“You still see the structural disadvantages of our segregated past when you drive along Colfax and see mostly Black and brown people, and then you drive through the southwest neighborhoods and see larger houses and mostly white people,” Marcantoni said.
Marcantoni was born in Puerto Rico, joined the United States Military in 2011 and was first stationed in San Antonio, Texas. In 2014, he relocated to Fort Carson, then moved to Lakewood in 2023. He owns Flamboyán Theatre, a Puerto Rican theatre company in Lakewood.
“Owning that theatre has given me a lot of perspective and passion for this city,” Marcantoni said. “I rent, but I have just as much a stake in this than owners who’ve lived here since the 70s.”
Marcantoni has urged the City Council to pass the upzoning reforms and encouraged his neighbors to do the same. More housing is an important step in the right direction, he said.
“We need more modern city planning that takes the complexity of people’s lives and needs into account,” he said. “Some people want to rent, some people want a smaller space and they should have that option.”
Note: This story was updated Friday, September 12 at 9:00 a.m. to clarify the impacts of the council's vote on zoning reform.
Note: This story was updated Friday, September 12 at 9:00 a.m. to clarify the impacts of the council's vote on zoning reform.
Type of story: News
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Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. To read more about why you can trust the journalism of Rocky Mountain PBS, please visit our editorial standards and practices page.