Local governments seeking additional revenue for housing and other priorities want to ask legislators next year to let them assess several new taxes and fees — including levies on vacant homes and real-estate sales — that could run into stiff resistance.
The new revenue-raising efforts come as both the federal and state governments are cutting funds for numerous programs, contributing to more cities and counties being unable to pay for all the services they want to offer. And they come as Colorado continues to grapple with rising costs of living and of housing — financial burdens that both proponents and opponents of the new taxes and fees use to justify their stances.
Colorado Municipal League leaders are searching for sponsors for three bills that cleared their policy committee — a proposal to let local governments assess real-estate transfer fees, an initiative to let cities and counties ask voters to approve taxes on vacant homes and an effort to expand the types of cities that can impose short-term rental taxes. Meanwhile, Rep. Kyle Brown is working at the behest of some county leaders to draft a bill that would let counties ask voters to approve excise taxes on specific goods or services.
A question of how to boost workforce housing
The three potential CML bills came to the organization from the Colorado Association of Ski Towns, whose members are focused particularly on ways to create or preserve affordable housing that can be used by local workers, CAST Executive Director Margaret Bowes said. The issue has been festering since at least 2019, which is when Bowes can remember walking through tourist-destination towns and seeing shops and restaurants operating on limited hours because they couldn’t find staff that could afford to live in the area.
“When you can’t house your employees, it really threatens a tourism-based economy,” Bowes said in an interview. “It’s also about the fabric of a community. How does a community continue to function without its policeman and nurses and teachers being able to afford to live there?”
Nobody disputes that Colorado is in the midst of an affordable-housing crisis, especially as the issue has consumed much of the debate at the Capitol for the past three years. But Brian Tanner, vice president of public policy for the Colorado Association of Realtors, said he gets frustrated that every proposed solution seems to involve raising fees on people living in this state rather than rolling back regulations that contribute to high costs.
“There are other tools to increase affordable housing. Let’s find incentives to reduce permitting time,” Tanner said. “There’s other approaches out there that, rather than adding onto the cost of housing, would work to encourage builders and developers to get homes in those markets.”
Brian Tanner, vice president of public policy for the Colorado Association of Realtors, speaks during a recent Colorado Chamber of Commerce housing…
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