The fate of the Lakewood Strategic Growth Initiative is now in the hands of a Jeffco judge
By John Aguilar | The Denver Post
November 6, 2017 at 6:30 am
The mismatch between the number of people moving to the metro area and the inventory of homes and apartments available to buy and rent has long fed a plot line that is only too familiar to new arrivals to the state — your hunt for a home will be harder than you thought.
But even as thousands of newcomers each year try to stake a claim on metro Denver’s drum-tight housing supply — the Denver Metro Association of Realtors reported Friday that the number of homes and condos available for sale at the end of October hit a record low for the month — concerns about the potential for runaway development are never far below the surface.
In Lakewood, Colorado’s fifth-largest city, a drawn-out effort to limit new home permits to no more than 1 percent of existing units a year attracted more than 7,600 signatures this year, with the city concluding that enough people backed the anti-growth measure to move it along to the ballot for a vote.