Colorado lawmakers eye church-owned land for new housing in latest land-use reform pitch

Less than a year after Colorado lawmakers passed a suite of land-use reforms in a bid to solve the state’s housing crisis, several are now backing a bill to further expand development rights — this time on land owned by churches and other religious organizations.

House Bill 1169 is part of a national movement known as YIGBY — or “Yes in God’s Backyard,” itself an offshoot of a broader pro-development coalition. The bill, which was introduced Tuesday, would generally allow religious groups and educational institutions to build housing on their properties, regardless of how the land is zoned.

Organizations would be required only to pass a local administrative review to ensure their plans meet code and other municipal requirements — instead of facing a vote by local officials to change zoning.

Religious organizations in Denver, Jefferson, Arapahoe and Douglas counties alone have more than 5,000 acres of undeveloped land, said Rep. Andrew Boesenecker, a Fort Collins Democrat who’s co-sponsoring the bill with Denver Democratic Rep. Javier Mabrey.

The amount of religious land in Denver, Boesenecker said, “presents a huge opportunity if you have a congregation that really wants to marry their mission of serving the community with a (housing) need in the community.”

But he said local zoning often prevents houses of worship and educational institutions from building on their own land. He described one church in Fort Collins that waded through nearly a year of delays before it could build the roughly 70 units of housing it had planned.

“That is a huge asset to the community that is so difficult to find — which is housing for folks who want to live in northern Colorado,” he continued. “And when you have a delay like that for a year or more, what you’re ultimately throwing in jeopardy is the entire capital stack, the viability of the project, (and) costs go up.”

Educational institutions, including school districts and state colleges and universities, would also be covered by the bill. But the measure would allow religious groups in particular to develop land that may be underutilized or completely unused because of shrinking congregation sizes, while helping meet the state’s ongoing and pressing need for more housing.

Allowing religious groups to develop housing — on large parking lots, vacant land or in place of unused buildings — would further those groups’ community commitments while also giving them a financial boost, supporters say.

“A lot of congregations in our state that have underutilized land — it’s mostly because at one time they were a lot larger than they are now, and they’re trying to figure out how to make ends meet,” David Runyon said. He’s the director of CityUnite, which helps organize and connect religious groups in Denver with policymakers.

Religious groups — and educational institutions — could lease their land, sell it entirely or partner with a housing developer, Boesenecker and Runyon said.

Bill follows California law

Colorado’s YIGBY proposal comes a year after a similar California law took effect in January 2024. That law, in turn, sprang from a 2019 effort in San Diego in which city officials loosened rules around parking lots and development to allow religious organizations to build housing on their land.

California has more than 171,000 acres of religious- and education-owned land that could be developed. It’s still too early to know how much housing has actually been built in the law’s first year, said Muhammad Alameldin, a policy associate at the University of California, Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation.

Religious organizations are supportive, he said, though they need technical assistance and financial help to step into an arena — housing development — where they have no experience.

A need to provide additional support is one of the main takeaways from California’s early implementation of its YIGBY law, Alameldin said.

“Churches love this,” he said. “They give services to people in need already: job training, food. It’s just a natural progression to start doing housing. But they don’t have capacity, they don’t know who to trust and there’s not enough money.”

Beverly Stables, a legislative and policy advocate for the Colorado Municipal League, which represents local governments, said the group was opposed to Colorado’s YIGBY bill. CML was a chief critic of last year’s suite of land-use reform measures, arguing broadly that they violated zoning and planning authority that should be reserved for local governments.

As for this latest reform proposal, Stables said her group had concerns about affordability, since the bill doesn’t require that new housing be pegged to help people at certain income levels. It’s also concerned about the potential that housing built on religious groups’ land may not be subject to anti-discrimination laws.

But Alameldin said an affordability requirement in California’s law has actually been an impediment to new development because there isn’t enough funding available to support new subsidized housing.

“You would think this thing would take off — you have all this land that could be developed. But the same issues you see with affordable housing development in general (are) going to impact the implementation of (California’s) bill,” he said, referring to limited access to money needed to build and preserve subsidized housing. “You could have all this land available, but if there’s no funding for that affordable housing, it’s not going to get built.”

Building housing on church land

As for the discrimination concerns, Boesenecker said the Colorado measure would be covered by a federal law that prohibits discrimination in housing.

Alameldin said he had similar concerns — that some religious organizations may bar LGBTQ+ tenants from renting housing on their properties, for instance — but that he wasn’t aware of that being an issue in California.

Stables also noted that Colorado’s bill comes on the heels of last year’s reforms and that additional changes may disrupt local governments’ planning and responses to that legislation.

“As that work gets under way, something like this really flies in the face of the planning that our members are actively doing,” Stables said.

It’s unclear how often religious organizations or educational institutions in Colorado have been stymied by municipal zoning rules or resistance from local authorities and residents when they’ve tried to build housing.

Some organizations have already successfully partnered with nonprofits and developers.