DENVER — The Senate Appropriations Committee on a party-line approved an amendment watering down Gov. Jared Polis' signature affordable housing bill before advancing it out of the panel that brought a halt to its progress.
The Wednesday vote came after a vigorous hour of debate among committee members over a competing amendment and an effort to return it to a lower committee. Both Republican efforts failed on party-line votes.
The hearing on Senate Bill 213 was delayed several times while bill sponsor Senate Majority Leader Dominick Moreno, D-Commerce City, tried to broker a compromise between the governor's office and Senate Democrats. Among the key opponents in the Senate's majority caucus were the appropriations panel's chair and vice-chair, both who pledged to vote against the bill if it continued to strip local government authority on zoning.
The winning amendment was a strike-below that rewrote the bill and took out its most controversial provision: language that sought to allow state control of local government zoning decisions. The bill in its new form would signal a major defeat for Polis, who made state preemption a key feature of his affordable housing plan for the 2023 session.
As amended, SB 213 is little more than a planning measure and still lacks any requirement that new housing be affordable. Its most important provision now appears to be a housing needs assessment that would look at housing needs on a statewide, rural and urban basis. The assessment has bipartisan support.
>Read the full article at Colorado Politics.
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