Growth-Limiting Ballot Measure Dead For This Election: Reports

GOLDEN, CO – A ballot initiative, opposed by the real estate industry, that would have limited development in towns along the Front Range appears to have fizzled out.

Golden resident Daniel Hayes, who submitted paperwork for Initiative 66, told the Denver Post this week he had never started to collect the 98,000 voter signatures needed to get the ballot in front of voters for Nov. 5 2018.

"Was told I was too late to get it on. Maybe next year," the Post reported he replied to email questions about the status of the ballot initiative.

Hayes's proposal was to limit new residential construction to one percent of existing housing for two years in the following counties: Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, El Paso, Jefferson, Larimer and Weld.

The proposal was strongly opposed by realtors and homebuilders as well as fair housing advocates, who say that the region's housing crisis and astronomical median home prices are a result of a shortage of more than 30,000 housing units in metro Denver and the area. Realtors called the Denver area housing inventory shortage "near crisis levels."

Hayes technically has until Aug. 8 to gather signatures.

Read the Denver Post story here.

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