Azure Printed Homes, a California startup, expects to produce 7,000 homes a year at its Culver City plant and at a new 25,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Montbello that opened last week. An added assembly site in Bennett is under consideration down the road.

If the Montbello location generates half that projected volume, it would put Azure ahead of the state’s current homebuilding leaders, D.R. Horton and Lennar.

It’s a moonshot goal, but if achieved and sustained, it could also help shrink the state’s shortfall of affordable units and fill the void created when Clayton Homes shut down its Heibar prefabrication plant in Adams County. That plant was an important supplier behind some of metro Denver’s most affordable new homes.

“Azure’s 3-D modular printing system presents an interesting and unique variation for the possible creation of housing at a lower cost and faster than stick-built or traditional modular construction,” said Rodger Hara, a veteran affordable housing consultant in Denver who attended the factory’s opening.

A complete shell of a home can be printed in 24 hours, Azure claims. The non-shell siding and windows on the open sides are customizable, as is the interior. That work, plus plumbing and electrical installation, can take another two to three weeks.

A highly customized home can go from concept to completion in a month when everything lines up. Initially, the company plans to start printing and assembling homes with about 50 workers and a handful of 3-D printers.

“Time is money, and by building a home at a fraction of the time, 3-D printing can bring huge savings,” said Gov. Jared Polis, who has pushed hard to make the state a leader in developing new home construction technologies. “I’ve never seen it faster.”

Azure’s homes cost about 30% less per square foot to build and require 70% less time than traditional methods, said Gene Eidelman, the .

Eidelman, in a dig at traditional rivals, notes that when people moved around in horses and buggies, homes were built primarily by driving nails into wood with a hammer.

Self-driving electric vehicles are now increasing their presence on the road, but home construction still involves a lot of nails being driven into wood.

Conventional homes can take 7 to 12 months to become move-in ready after breaking ground, longer if any customization is required.

Azure’s approach combines 3-D home printing, which extrudes layer upon layer of material to build a structural shell, with prefabrication, which involves building wood or steel-framed components in a factory.

Most 3-D home printers like ICON, based in Austin, and Alquist 3D, which moved its headquarters from Iowa to Greeley in 2023, use a concrete-like slurry extruded on the construction site. Some of their designs define — a la Luke Skywalker’s childhood home on Tatooine.

Azure, by contrast, melts pellets made of recycled plastics and fiberglass. Its printers extrude the material in a factory setting, allowing production to continue around the clock, regardless of the weather.

The resulting obround shell, which consists of a roof, floor and the two short sides, is durable, heat and cold-resistant, and able to withstand fires, termites, and the elements. The design is more modernistic than futuristic, different but still relatable.

State leaders also see construction innovation as the key to helping Colorado overcome its housing crisis. The country faces a shortage of 10 million homes, according to the .

Colorado’s Demography Office puts the state’s housing shortfall at 106,000 units in 2023, which is a 25% decrease from a peak shortage of 140,000 units in 2019. Just to keep pace with population changes, the state needs about 34,100 new homes and apartments a year.

“We really try to make sure that we are advancing a robust economy, and that includes a home for every budget,” said Eve Lieberman, executive director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade.

Colorado has put tens of millions of dollars on the table looking for ways to resolve its housing shortfall, primarily through the Colorado Affordable Housing Fund, which is funded through Proposition 123, and the Innovative Housing Incentive Program or IHIP, which was created from a $40 million transfer out of the General Fund to support housing-related manufacturers.

IHIP loans and working capital grants have helped seed or support , and they are attacking the housing cost problem from a variety of angles.

Among the modular factories with state backing are EcoMod in Hudson, Fading West in Buena Vista, and Vederra in Aurora. Panelized component makers accessing state help include Phoenix Haus in Grand Junction, Huron Components in Littleton, and Higher Purpose Homes in Durango.

Besides Azure, other 3-D home printers with state dollars include StructureBOT in Colorado Springs and Verotouch Construction in Salida.

The support has directly incentivized the production of more than 1,000 units, with an additional 2,000 units in the works, Lieberman said. Azure has the potential to become the star in a new generation of home fabricators.

Azure has received a $3.9 million loan from the state’s Affordable Housing Financing Fund, which is funded through the redirection of 0.1% of state income taxes or about $300 million annually via Proposition 123.

It is also looking to raise $10 million from investors as part of a push to boost capacity at its original Los Angeles plant and its new Colorado plant.

“I have become the greatest salesman for Colorado as I walk around the world, because enough of the talking,” Eidelman said.

A customer emailed him four years ago saying the company should consider Colorado, a suggestion he initially rebuffed because of a lack of incentives. But not long after, IHIP rolled out.

During that process, Eidelman got to know Jack Tiebout, who headed IHIP, which is under OEDIT. In December, Tiebout left the state to work as Azure’s principal in charge of growth and partnerships.

So far, the company, which launched in 2022, has built 100 homes and has orders worth another $60 million, primarily in transitional housing for homelessness programs, as well as community-based affordable housing programs.

Currently, the company is providing 54 transitional housing units for the Welcome Home Village in San Luis Obispo, which is scheduled to open next month.

The company had a two-bedroom, 360-square-foot model that cost $96,900 on display outside its factory. The company said it can build homes at an average cost of $150 to $175 per square foot.

Prices range from $20,000 for tiny backyard studios to $200,000 for a full-size home with ADUs.

State and local leaders are hoping Azure can fill the void left when Clayton Homes closed its 200,000-square-foot factory at 475 W. 53rd Place. The plant, which was the state’s largest maker of panelized components, struggled under the weight of reduced demand because of higher interest rates and fluctuating lumber costs.

Through its affiliation with Oakwood Homes, the plant was behind some of metro Denver’s most affordable new homes. But it was also “old school” compared to some of the newer plants popping up under IHIP.

After all that work, the Lakewood City Council finished the job in December, passing final changes to the city’s land-use blueprint designed to pave the way for the construction of more diverse and dense housing, like triplexes and quadplexes, anywhere in Colorado’s fifth-largest city.

“It was very condensed, very intense in terms of the time we put into it,” Lakewood Mayor Wendi Strom said.

Fast-forward to the April 7 special election brought to a ballot by residents unhappy with the changes. When the initial results popped up on the city’s website at 8 p.m. — showing — Strom was dumbfounded.

“In that first 10 seconds when you get those results, it was a pretty good kick in the gut,” she said.

How Lakewood might proceed from here is anything but clear. The special election result was just the latest twist in a yearslong battle over how to make housing more affordable for Coloradans, especially those in low-income and working-class families who have largely been priced out of the market.

The election also highlighted a battle that has played out in other Colorado communities in recent years. In , Steamboat Springs and Littleton, among other places, attempts by elected leaders to spur housing price relief through zoning changes or affordable housing initiatives have run headlong into residents’ desire to keep their communities as they are.

Lakewood’s mayor is still committed to changing the city’s zoning code, but she acknowledged that she and her colleagues may need to take a different approach.

“The code is so complex — it’s hard to expect a voter to understand it to that degree,” Strom said.

Karen Gordey headed up the Lakewood Citizens Alliance, one of several issue committees that formed last year to collect signatures for a citizen ballot initiative to repeal the city’s zoning updates. The 15-year Lakewood resident said the city tried to do too much all at once, while failing to appreciate how important the look and feel of a neighborhood is to those who live there.

“The hope is that this election sent a strong message to the council — to listen to the citizens and not make radical zoning changes,” Gordey said. “This went way too far.”

State Rep. Rebekah Stewart, a former Lakewood councilwoman, worked on earlier iterations of the code changes that voters spurned. She said the city’s leaders crafted ambitious ordinances that provided the tools and incentives to alleviate Lakewood’s housing shortage.

The state had an estimated shortfall of 106,000 homes and apartments in 2023, the most recent year available, and needed to build at least 34,100 housing units per year, not counting vacation homes, over the next 10 years to keep up with slower population growth, according to .

Despite a recent slowdown in metro Denver home prices that have surged upward for a decade or more, the median sale price of a single-family home came in at $630,000 in February — up 2.4% from January’s $615,000.

Price relief won’t come, Stewart said, if everything simply stays as it is.

“This has been years and years of work and community stakeholding that was undone in a single night,” she said of the Lakewood council’s redrafting process during the last half of 2025. “We have a problem, and the election didn’t solve that.”

Complying with state housing law

Voters’ decision earlier this month may also have raised another problem: Lakewood’s compliance with state laws passed in 2024 and last year that aim to increase and diversify housing stock across the state.

The bills, passed by legislative Democrats, broadly require cities — especially those on the Front Range — to implement various zoning changes and undertake detailed planning to ease and incentivize housing development. The measures push accessory dwelling units, the packing of more residential units around transit stops and a reduction in the square footage that must be devoted to parking.

“I do believe Lakewood is now out of compliance with state laws, which is really unfortunate,” Stewart said.

But Strom isn’t convinced that her city is crosswise with state law. The mayor is confident the city can tweak its code less comprehensively to ensure it is complying with the state’s housing mandates.

“There may be instances where we can do little one-offs (to come into compliance),” Strom said.

A shows 18 cities out of compliance with one or more of the housing laws passed over the last two years. Lakewood is not one of them, but the list is current as of April 1, which preceded Lakewood’s special election.

Cities and counties that don’t comply with the laws run the risk of losing out on tens of millions of dollars in state grant funding, Gov. Jared Polis’ office has said.

Several metro Denver cities sued the state last year over the laws, claiming that the mandates encroach on their home-rule authority to manage land-use policies as they see fit. Several of those plaintiff communities, including Aurora, Westminster, Lafayette and Centennial, appear on the state’s list as being out of compliance with the state statutes.

The Lafayette City Council is in the homestretch of , an effort that began last year. A survey conducted by the city showed mixed support for the proposed changes, with about 48% of respondents backing “missing middle” housing in a limited way, particularly if it’s paired with strong design standards to maintain neighborhood character, according to .

Missing middle refers to housing of slightly higher density, including duplexes, triplexes and attached townhomes, that might fit near single-family homes without being as imposing as large apartment buildings.

The Denver Post requested an interview with the governor, or an adviser on housing policy, to ascertain what effect the special election results could have on Lakewood’s standing. Polis’ office provided a statement instead.

“The governor is committed to working with Lakewood and other local governments to reduce or eliminate government imposed barriers and red tape that block or increase the cost of housing and we are assessing the impacts of this election,” said Eric Maruyama, a spokesman for the governor.

Max Nardo, a housing and smart growth senior associate with the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, said it wasn’t clear what price communities might pay if they don’t comply with state housing laws. Colorado, he said, didn’t really start addressing housing and zoning issues at the state level until about three years ago. And many of the measures passed by the legislature, he said, are still being rolled out.

The problem is bigger than mere compliance with state laws, Nardo said. Lakewood had gone beyond what the state required, he said.

“Lakewood was doing more — its reforms included smaller homes on smaller lots throughout the city,” Nardo said. “It followed a two-year process and had favorable polling in the community. What more can you ask for?”

His organization put out a news release two days after Lakewood’s special election, calling it a “low-turnout” election that didn’t accurately reflect the will of the city of 156,000 people. The release noted that just over 22,000 voters overturned the zoning changes, “roughly 20% of all registered voters in the city.”

“Research consistently shows that the residents most likely to participate in local zoning debates and special elections tend to be older, wealthier homeowners who bought into their communities years ago at much lower prices, and have more time and capacity to engage in public processes than renters, essential workers, or young families,” the organization said in its release.

Housing policy is necessarily a statewide issue because the housing market is not confined to any one community, Nardo said.

“This outcome underscores that this is a collective action,” he said. “A city cannot solve it by acting alone.”

‘Checks and balances’

Kevin Bommer, the executive director of the Colorado Municipal League, called the notion of local governments in Colorado needing to defer to state lawmakers on the subject of housing policy “hogwash.”

Cities and towns are best equipped to know what is needed inside their borders, he said, not part-time legislators who convene for less than five months a year in Denver. The housing laws that the General Assembly passed over the last couple of years created pressure and artificially accelerated a process that takes time and public input, Bommer said.

“If folks at the state Capitol hadn’t pushed this forward with mandates, the municipalities could take the time to work with their citizens and come up with a long-term vision,” he said.

It didn’t surprise him that residents would revolt when they didn’t feel their elected representatives were taking the right approach to overhauling zoning codes in a way that could potentially impact their neighborhoods.

“This clearly shows that residents are the ultimate form of local control. And ultimately, they said the vision that was laid out (by the City Council) was one that they aren’t on board with,” Bommer said. “The last time I checked, that was called participatory democracy — it isn’t always pretty.”

Godrey, who led the charge to repeal Lakewood’s zoning rewrite, said the city could find other ways to address the housing shortage without opening up the city’s many single-family neighborhoods to “blanket upzoning.” Converting vacant office space to residential uses is one approach, she said.

“This election was about having checks and balances — and you got to hear the voice of the people,” she said.

Peter LiFari, the executive director of Maiker Housing Partners, says it’s the powerful emotional element that comes with homeownership that makes the issue difficult to solve locally. Maiker is the housing authority in Adams County.

“Homeowners are highly motivated to protect their most precious asset,” he said. “There are some things that we can’t easily make a decision about at the local level because they’re so visceral.”

Despite the council’s loss at the ballot box this month, LiFari said Lakewood’s attempt to address its housing challenges was far from over. Crafting and refining housing policy takes years, if not decades, he said.

But without that thoughtful work, he said, Colorado is never going to fix its affordable housing crisis.

“I would tell Lakewood to go at it again — it takes a couple of bites at the apple for people to get comfortable with this,” LiFari said.

Strom, the mayor, said the issue may go quiet for a little while as she and her colleagues lick their wounds from what was a bruising electoral battle. But the need to adjust the city’s zoning code to account for Lakewood’s evolving housing situation is not going to disappear.

“This is not over — we have things in the code that need to be updated,” she said.

Young adults are moving into their parents’ basements. Older adults are finding it difficult to downsize in the communities they’ve lived in for decades. Families are commuting farther, placing additional strain on infrastructure and quality of life. Employers are struggling to recruit and retain talent.

In 2022, Colorado voters recognized this challenge and acted by approving Proposition 123, a dedicated funding stream to support income-aligned housing statewide. It was a clear directive: invest in housing solutions that help working Coloradans afford to live in their communities.

That is why the recent decision to advance legislation (House Bill 1360, the Affordable Housing Financing Fund) to divert approximately $130 million from Proposition 123 funds is so concerning.

Colorado’s mayors recognize that balancing the state budget requires difficult choices. But when voters dedicate funding to a specific purpose, especially one as urgent as housing, it is critical that we honor their commitment. Colorado has a strong track record of collaborative problem-solving. That is why these eight Colorado mayors encouraged me to write this piece calling for continued funding of Proposition 123: Broomfield Mayor Guyleen Castriotta; Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman; Louisville Mayor Chris Leh; Parker Mayor Josh Rivero; Littleton Mayor Kyle Schlachter and Golden Mayor Laura Weinberg.

These are not abstract dollars. They represent real projects, real homes, and real opportunities that may now be delayed or lost. One of the most significant barriers to housing production is financing. Without the right financial tools, even the most well-planned housing developments will not move forward.

But here is the fundamental issue: we cannot create new financing mechanisms on one hand while redirecting existing, voter-approved housing funding on the other. Proposition 123 was designed to provide critical and sustained funding for housing in our communities. As written, HB-1360 guts funding, denying communities reliable, long-term investment in housing.

Diverting those funds undermines both the intent of voters and the effectiveness of new legislative efforts. Across Colorado, local governments are already putting Proposition 123 dollars to work in thoughtful and practical ways.

In Broomfield, the city and county utilized these resources to help income-qualified residents achieve homeownership through down payment assistance, and in Louisville, the funds enabled a planning capacity grant that supports a comprehensive housing code rewrite.

In Littleton, the Meadowood Village Cooperative was able to preserve housing by purchasing their manufactured housing community, which ensures community stability and affordable housing preservation for decades to come, also supporting housing diversity and accessible options for senior residents.

In Aurora, this funding supported an 85-unit intergenerational affordable multifamily development. There are many more examples on the Proposition 123 Dashboard website.

These are exactly the types of locally driven, community-specific solutions voters intended — expanding planning capacity, supporting homeownership, preserving existing housing, and building new homes. Simultaneously, local governments are navigating an increasing number of state-level mandates aimed at increasing housing density, often at the expense of local land use authority. We are told these changes are necessary to address the housing shortage. But zoning alone does not build housing.

Financing is the single greatest barrier to delivering income-aligned housing. Rising construction costs, higher interest rates, and infrastructure needs all require substantial financial investment. Local governments are stepping up, updating codes, engaging communities, identifying sites, and building partnerships, but without reliable funding, even the best plans cannot move forward. This is where alignment matters. If the legislature is serious about increasing housing supply, then policy, funding, and local implementation must work together, not at cross purposes.

The path forward is clear. Protect Proposition 123. Ensure that local governments have both the authority and the resources to deliver housing solutions that meet the needs of their communities. Because at the end of the day, this is not just about policy; it is about whether the people who keep our communities running can afford to call them home.

Heidi Williams is the president and CEO of Civic Results and the executive director of the Metro Mayors Caucus. She is the former mayor of Thornton.

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Storefronts along Walden’s Main Street have emptied, including the 10th Frame, a bowling alley that closed its doors when it failed to find a buyer after more than a year of trying, said Samantha Martin, the county’s administrator and a long-time resident.

“We have talked about it multiple times, and there is no perfect answer,” Martin said of strategies to stem the declines. “Right now we don’t have an action plan.”

Since 2020, Jackson County has lost a larger share of its population, 12.2%, than any county in the state, leaving it with 1,211 people as of June 30, 2025, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Young people continue to depart for better jobs in larger cities. A loyal remnant is aging in place, even when moving to a lower altitude might benefit their health, Martin said. But they can defy time for only so long.

When homes come on the market, some heirs convert the properties to family vacation homes in Colorado’s “moose viewing capital.” If they do get listed, investors looking for short-term rentals snap them up, leaving limited options for anyone looking to relocate.

Long accustomed to drawing people without even trying, Colorado last year experienced its slowest population gains since the late 1980s. Winners and losers are coming into sharper focus as the battle intensifies to retain and attract people.

Defying predictions that the state’s population gains would be back on track by now following the pandemic, a majority of Colorado counties have lost their demographic momentum.

Much of Colorado’s growth is now concentrated in a belt of counties stretching from Weld down to Elbert and El Paso counties, temporarily bypassing Arapahoe, which had the state’s biggest population loss in raw numbers.

Of Colorado’s 64 counties, more than half, 33, lost population last year, including four of the state’s largest: Arapahoe, Denver, Boulder and Pueblo counties.

Resort areas, with some of the highest home prices in the country, are starting to shrink, joining the aging agricultural counties on the Eastern Plains that have suffered a steady drip of population losses for years.

More than a third of Colorado counties have fewer residents than they did in 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That group includes Jefferson County, the state’s fourth most populous county.

After Jackson, Sedgwick, Otero, Hinsdale and Pitkin counties have the largest five-year percentage declines in population.

Colorado added 225,688 people in the first half of this decade, including 24,059 last year. A majority of the state’s gains this decade have come from immigration, which contributed 130,218 people. But that source, already down under the Trump administration, may dry up this year.

“Certainly in 2026, we can expect very weak or negative net international immigration to Colorado,” said State Demographer Kate Watkins.

The White House in every major metro area in a news release after the county and metro area Census numbers came out. Metro Denver earned a mention for having one of the biggest declines after Laredo, Texas, where immigration flows dropped 95%.

“In Denver and its suburbs, the net immigration rate fell by almost three-quarters. In the Chicago area, it was slashed by nearly two-thirds,” the release said.

Immigration had been masking big declines in people moving from other states. Domestic net migration was why Colorado averaged population gains of 100,000 people a year in the 1990s, and more than 72,000 a year in the ’00s and ’10s.

Since 2020, it has only contributed 17,729 people total.Until housing costs become more competitive, it is hard to see how it rebounds.

That leaves natural change, or births minus deaths, as the main driver of population growth going forward. In Colorado, that currently contributes a little over 20,000 people a year.

But as more baby boomers die, expect that to shrink too. Nationally, natural decline, or more deaths than births, is expected to set in by 2030. Colorado isn’t expected to hit that grim milestone until 2047.

“We are a young state relative to the nation as a whole,” Watkins said.

Population declines elsewhere will result in fewer adults available to move to Colorado in the years ahead.

Growth is now concentrated mostly in Weld, Douglas, Adams, El Paso, and Larimer counties, which gained a combined 26,678 people last year, more than the statewide population gain.

A lower birth rate, higher living costs that deter domestic migration, and slower immigration are all contributing to more modest population gains. And that slowing has set off a battle to capture whatever population growth is available.

Where the population is shrinking

Arapahoe County led the state with a net gain of 4,621 immigrants last year, but it also saw the most residents move out to other parts of Colorado or other states, 9,859. That contributed to a net loss of 1,940 residents in the 2025 count.

Since 2020, Arapahoe has lost nearly 32,000 residents domestically, which was offset by a gain of nearly 35,000 immigrants.

When immigrants leave Colorado for other states, they count as outbound domestic migrants, Watkins said. That could explain, in part, why counties like Arapahoe and Denver are seeing such large domestic outflows.

So why didn’t more immigrants, as well as other residents, stay put?

“Like every county in Colorado, we’re experiencing a crisis of affordability in the housing market,” said Jill McGranahan, a spokeswoman for Arapahoe County.

To what degree high housing costs pushed immigrants to move to more affordable places is hard to parse out. Some immigrants never intended to land in Colorado in the first place.

In 2023, Denver spent more than $35 million to handle an unexpected surge of immigrants, mostly from Venezuela, including purchasing 14,800 tickets to send them to other cities.

Denver had the state’s second-largest population loss last year at 978, reflecting net domestic outflows of 8,023, less a natural increase of 4,197, and continued immigration of 2,871.

Denver and Arapahoe counties rank high for births, and they should remain gateways for young adults relocating from other states.

Denver has a big surplus of new apartments that is pushing down rents. And home construction is set to take off in Arapahoe County, especially south of the airport.

A harder demographic hurdle to overcome will be a shrinking gap between births and deaths, which Jefferson, Boulder, Pueblo and Mesa counties are staring down.

When there aren’t enough homes available for young families at prices they can afford, they either delay moving forward with children or move elsewhere. Not only is inbound migration limited, but so are future births.

“We wanted to help people age in place and stay in their homes, but what that means is these homes don’t turn over?” asks Phyllis Resnick, executive director of the Colorado Futures Center.

If homes don’t turn over or not enough are built, families wanting to have children are forced to move elsewhere. They might end up in Weld County. Or Idaho or South Carolina.

“Our birth rate and our death rate are getting closer and closer together,” acknowledged Chris O’Keefe, the planning and zoning director for Jefferson County. “People enjoy it here and they age here. People don’t leave their houses.”

Over the past five years, the county has recorded 28,791 births and 26,745 deaths, according to the Census Bureau.

Home to nearly 10% of the state’s population, Jefferson County has contributed only 2.3% of the state’s natural increase since 2020. Denver, by contrast, accounts for 12.3% of the state’s population, but has contributed 22.3% of the natural increase.

Fewer children means fewer enrollments. Jefferson County Public Schools, the state’s second-largest school district, has seen a wave of closures, especially on its eastern side, which has older neighborhoods.

Developments such as Candelas and Leyden Rock further west, by contrast, have brought in young families. But it isn’t enough to offset losses in Lakewood and Wheat Ridge.

Vivian Elementary, where Mollie Crampton had her two young sons enrolled, was among the schools shuttered in 2022.

Declining enrollments are linked to the county’s stagnating population, which in turn, Crampton argues, is linked to the county’s high home prices.

“I think a really big part of it is affordable housing,” she said. “Prices just don’t go down.”

Lakewood enacted rezoning ordinances to permit higher density in an effort to increase supply and lower home prices and rents.

But long-time residents of the state’s fifth largest city, skeptical that the zoning changes would work and worried about crowding and congestion, rallied to call a special election to repeal the measures.

Crampton said she voted early in Tuesday’s election — against repealing the recently enacted rezoning ordinance.

“If it passes, I think a lot of people will leave because they can (only) afford to buy a home in another state, or another county,” Crampton said. “There’s never going to be more inventory.”

According to early results posted by elections officials Tuesday night, voters in Lakewood overwhelmingly approved four measures that restore the zoning code the city had before elected leaders changed it last year to prod more home building.

Pueblo and Mesa counties have had the largest natural decreases this decade — with Pueblo down 2,787 and Mesa down 1,738.

Mesa County has offset that with relatively strong domestic migration this decade, allowing its population to grow by 7,135 people vs. 1,110 for Pueblo.

Fremont County has also managed to pull a rabbit out of a hat, increasing its population by 1,102 this decade, despite a natural decrease of 1,629 people.

Both are retirement havens that have attracted residents from the Front Range with lower living costs, and in the case of Grand Junction, a more temperate climate. Colorado’s aging population is working in their favor.

By contrast, resort areas, where housing costs are so high that even doctors and corporate managers struggle to find affordable accommodations, are seeing residents leave.

Pitkin County, home to Aspen, has seen its population shrink by 4.3% this decade, while San Miguel, home to Telluride, is down by 3.7%, and Eagle County, home to Vail and Beaver Creek, has lost 2.5% of its population.

On the whole, the forecast calls for continued growth, although at a slower pace than in prior decades, Watkins said. Colorado reached 5 million people in 2010 and hit 6 million last year. It should cross 7 million by 2045.

New homes, new faces

Weld County Commissioner Scott James, 63, grew up in LaSalle and has had a front row seat in the county’s transformation from farm and oil fields into Colorado’s fastest growing county.

With 46,992 people added over the past five years, including 7,146 last year, Weld County surpassed Boulder County in population before the pandemic, and last year it surpassed Larimer County.

In 1998, James moved to Johnstown, which had 3,200 people at the time, and he paid $136,400 for a home in what he said represented an “iconic Americana slice of life.”

The town now counts around 21,000 people, who live largely on former farms and ranches, said James, who witnessed the transformation when he was mayor.

“These guys would sit in the back of the room and almost hang their heads — but what choice did they have? The farmer has a chance to cash in on all his hard work,” he said.

One thing that Weld County shares in common with the state’s other growing counties is an openness to home construction. And those new homes open the door to babies.

Weld County has welcomed more than 25,000 babies in the past five years, while Adams County has added 33,349 and Douglas County has added more than 20,000.

“People who want a bigger home and more land, it’s available to them,” said Jeff Keener, president and CEO of the South Metro Denver Chamber, which is based in Lone Tree.

Douglas County hosts the state’s largest master planned community, Sterling Ranch, which has ranked in the top 50 nationally for the past six years and has sold more than 3,000 homes since construction started in 2017.

Parker and Castle Rock have also been actively adding homes at lower price points.

“The home-rule cities have done a really good job of planning for that,” Keener said. “They have worked really hard to put in a wide variation of housing prices.”

With greater housing availability, the fastest-growing counties are also winning when it comes to net domestic migration. Weld County added 31,411 people that way since 2020, while Douglas County added 27,490 and Larimer County added 12,518.

Domestic gains in Weld and Douglas surpass the 17,729 added statewide, which reflects their ability to lure residents from other parts of the state.

James said he sees nothing but opportunity for Weld County, provided people can think differently and stay open to new ideas.

“We are excited about geothermal, we are excited about renewables — and by God, bring on nuclear,” he said. “The fact that Weld County is a county of almost 400,000 people tells me we’re doing it right.”

Update made noon Wednesday: The general location of Jackson County has been updated.

The special election vote strikes a blow against those who have been pushing for more density in the state’s fifth-largest city in the hopes of increasing housing supply and lowering home prices.

The four measures passed by nearly 2-to-1 ratios, with more than 15,000 votes in favor of repealing each ordinance and approximately 8,700 votes to keep them, according to

Tuesday’s special election was set in January after a group of citizens gathered enough signatures to get the measures on the ballot as part of an attempt to reverse the city’s zoning changes. Cathy Kentner, who headed the anti-rezoning committee Lakewood For All, said she was “very happy” with Tuesday’s result.

“It’s truly a win for the people over big-money special interests,” she said, noting that her side was far outspent by those pushing for the zoning changes. “I think the voters are saying they expect more from their (city) councilors. They voted for these councilors, and they expect them to represent them. And this zoning change is not representing your constituents.”

Kentner said this was the second citizen initiative put on the ballot in Lakewood in the past decade, a sign the city needs to do a better job talking to its 156,000 residents before enacting big changes to land-use policy.

“To move forward with zoning, they need to talk to the people whose property rights they’re changing,” she said.

Sophia Mayott-Guerrero, a former Lakewood City Council member who serves as campaign manager for Make Lakewood Livable, conceded that the rezoning effort had failed Tuesday.

But she said the special election was a “low-information, low-turnout” election that was marked by “fear-mongering” on the other side.

“I understand if what you believe is that you will lose your home, that you would vote this way,” Mayott-Guerrero said. “But we have a system of housing and zoning that needs to be updated. It’s based on things from 50 years ago, and with this defeat tonight, we will continue to have a housing affordability crisis.”

The City Council passed four ordinances in 2025 that together encourage the construction of more varied housing types, and by extension, greater density — with the ultimate aim of lowering home prices in a notoriously expensive metro housing market.

Despite a recent slowdown in metro-Denver home prices that have galloped inexorably upward for a decade or more, the median sales price of a single-family home came in at $630,000 in February — up 2.4% from January’s $615,000.

The median sales price, however, remains 2.2% below where it was a year earlier.

The changes the City Council made last year allow diverse housing types — duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes and townhomes — anywhere in the city. They also limit new home sizes to 5,000 square feet and encourage the conversion of vacant or underused commercial buildings to housing.

The new rules went into effect Jan. 1.

Opponents of the rezoning effort said the changes would endanger the character of established neighborhoods while not actually helping reduce home prices. In a news release issued this year, the opposition called Lakewood’s rezoning efforts “a blueprint for crammed, profit-driven development, bulldozed trees and ignored infrastructure.”

Those backing the city’s rezoning effort countered that without policies designed to diversify Lakewood’s housing inventory, working-class families representing teachers, firefighters and health care workers will never be able to afford a home in the city.

Mayott-Guerrero told The Denver Post last month that “the idea that we can keep structuring our housing in the same way and get a different result doesn’t make sense to me.”

The battle over affordable housing runs deep in Colorado, with the state mandating higher density in recent years and, in turn, being sued by cities that claim the legislation treads on their home-rule authority. Last fall, Littleton voters passed a measure that better protects single-family-home neighborhoods from multifamily housing projects.

The campaign to retain Lakewood’s rezoning regulations has outraised the opposition by a ratio of nearly 6-to-1 — $269,000 to $46,000, according to on March 31.

The issue committee Make Lakewood Livable — which supports keeping Lakewood’s rezoning ordinances — has pulled down big-dollar contributions from developers, including $10,000 from Cardel Homes and $50,000 from Boulder-based Conscience Bay.

Its top donor is the Action Now Initiative. The Houston-based nonprofit advocacy organization, which is a part of the national philanthropy Arnold Ventures, gave Make Lakewood Livable $75,000.

Arnold Ventures was launched by John Arnold, a former Enron executive and hedge fund manager who previously spent in support of Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s election and a 2024 Denver affordable housing sales tax proposal that was rejected narrowly by voters.

The top contribution on the side in favor of repealing Lakewood’s rezoning, which was supported by three issue committees, is $2,500.

And while the excess supply has reduced the number of office towers, it hasn’t deterred five developers from adding nearly 600,000 square feet of new office space this year and early next, according to a , which is part of the Yardi Research.

“Office development across the U.S. remains quite limited at the moment. Outside of a handful of select gateway cities, most new projects tend to be concentrated in prime urban districts or higher-end suburban locations,” said Roxanne Cuceu, a spokeswoman with CommercialCafe.

That theme is playing out in metro Denver, where three of the five projects are going up in Cherry Creek, which has avoided the downturn hitting the rest of Denver since the pandemic. Those developments include 201 Fillmore, Milwaukee Place, and 2nd & Adams.

Clayworks in Golden represents the region’s largest mixed-use project at 181,503 square feet, including 171,160 square feet of office space. CoorsTek, which owns the 12.5-acre site that once housed its ceramic manufacturing at 800 Ford St., is converting it into a mixed-use which should improve Golden’s downtown area.

Clayworks will locate its global headquarters in the new building, called B3, and will also open up space for outside tenants in the multi-year redevelopment.

In Highlands Ranch, Remedy Medical Properties is building a 118,500-square-foot medical office building at 9051 SSG Chris Falkel Dr.

Driven in part by the need to care for an aging population, roughly last year. In metro Denver, that ratio this year is closer to one-fifth.

Nationally, developers have 28.9 million square feet of office space under construction, with half of that having broken ground in 2025, according to CommercialCafe.

The square footage of office space being added in Denver represents 0.4% of the total current office inventory, which ranks 16th overall as the percentage of office stock under construction among major metros.

Boston remains the country’s leader for office construction, with 4.1 million square feet being added, which represents 1.6% of the city’s total office stock. The city’s dominance in biotech and life sciences is driving that growth. But even in Boston, the volume of new office space is running only a quarter of the pace seen in 2024.

On a percentage basis, West Palm Beach, Fla., is adding the most space at 4%, which translates into 1.6 million square feet. That boom, centered on its downtown, is being driven by the area’s growing reputation as “Wall Street South.”

For Denver, Cherry Creek is likely to be the epicenter of new office development for the foreseeable future as taller buildings rise up and the neighborhood densifies.

Of the three projects underway in Cherry Creek, 201 Fillmore, which is also the address, is the largest at 130,000 square feet of office space. Schnitzer West, the developer, is taking a one-story retail building that once housed a boutique furniture store and replacing it with a seven-story tower.

201 Filmore will provide higher-end amenities like private terraces, a fitness center and upscale retail on the ground floor. The anchor tenant is Antero Resources, which is in the process of relocating from its current headquarters near Union Station.

Antero was a key company in spurring the revival of the Union Station neighborhood when it relocated from upper downtown to a new building in 2012.

Milwaukee Place, 242 Milwaukee St., is a 94,000-square-foot building, of which 84,000 square feet represents Class A office space. The remainder will be ground-floor retail anchored by TileBar, which specializes in tile and bath design, not cocktails.

Matt Joblon’s BMC Investments, the firm behind several other high-profile projects in Cherry Creek, broke ground in October and expects to finish the building by January on a former Sears store and Crate & Barrel site.

“We are focused on high-quality, well-designed office and retail space in select submarkets,” said Kelly Pretzer, managing director and head of development and affordable housing at BMC. “We have delivered several office buildings in Cherry Creek. We know that submarket well.”

The third project, with 81,858 square feet of office space and 94,466 square feet total, is 2nd & Adams, located at 3250 E. 2nd Ave., which has finished construction on the site of a long vacant lot.

Magnetic Capital, headed by partners Chris Carroll and Daniel Huml, has had no issues finding tenants to fill the five-story building. The retail on-site will include a rooftop bar, and tenants are completing finishes on their offices.

And more projects are on the drawing board. Cherry Creek West, the redevelopment of 13 acres on the west side of the Cherry Creek Shopping Center that housed a Bed Bath & Beyond and an Elway’s steakhouse, is expected to start demolition soon.

That development is expected to contribute 600,000 square feet of new office space in the coming years, about as much as is now under construction metrowide.

Alpine Investments’ Timber 225, 225 Clayton St., is expected to add roughly 100,000 square feet of high-end office space. It represents Cherry Creek’s first “mass timber” office building, and is expected to be completed later next year.

A four-story mixed-use building with office space is set to replace the Cucina Colore restaurant at 3035 E. 3rd Ave.

Downtown Denver and the Denver Tech Center, by contrast, are facing the destruction of office space and unimaginably high vacancy rates six years after the pandemic began and workers went remote.

Downtown did see 1900 Lawrence open its doors in 2024. The 30-story tower contains more than 700,000 square feet of class A office space, along with 10,000 square feet of ground-floor retail.

Riverside Investment & Development out of Chicago was the developer behind the largest office tower built in downtown Denver in more than four decades.

While 1900 Lawrence has successfully poached high-profile firms like Gibson Dunn and Reed Smith from older skyscrapers, the tower symbolizes the downtown market����ap ongoing struggle, with roughly 75% of its floor space still seeking a tenant, according to 19 leases available on

CommercialCafe estimates that 450,000 square feet of Denver office space has been demolished in recent years, based on the information it has available. Much more is expected to convert into apartments and possibly condos in the years ahead.

The owners of 7601 Technology Way, a six-floor office building with 140,000 square feet in the Denver Tech Center, have applied to demolish the building, even though it is a relatively young 30-year-old. The plan is to build 600 apartments on the site.

Arrow Electronics in Centennial demolished its 125,000 square foot building at 9201 E. Dry Creek Road late last year after determining it didn’t make sense to repurpose the structure, built in 2001, for residences, according to

A multi-family complex with 329 apartments is planned for the site of the former corporate headquarters.

Some buildings have been targeted for conversion. Notable projects include the conversion of the historic Petroleum Building from office space into residential use, creating 178 new housing units, as well as similar work at the University Building that will add 120 mixed-income units. 

Developer Asher Luzzatto is also planning to convert nearly 1 million square feet of downtown office space into approximately 700 apartments. On Wednesday, the DDA board approved a low-interest loan up to $63 million to support the High Fidelity Plaza redevelopment.

Metro Denver’s apartment market, however, is pulling back after years of strong growth. That is reflected in rising vacancy rates and rents that have dropped to 2022 levels.

On the upside

The industrial market remains the strongest part of commercial real estate in metro Denver. Industrial space developers are building 7.9 million square feet in metro Denver, which ranks ninth in the country by total volume, according to CommercialCafe.

Upon completion, the projects will boost the region’s total industrial inventory by 2.8%, which is above the 1.7% increase average nationally for all the industrial projects underway.

The northern Front Range is home to the second-largest industrial project in the country, a 3.5-million-square-foot facility for Amazon at 6425 Byrd Drive in Loveland, .

PepsiCo is also working on the largest bottling plant in its history, a 1.2 million square foot facility near Denver International Airport that will replace a much smaller plant in River North.

That said, CommercialCafe warns that with a 12.2% industrial vacancy rate in the region, which ranks second highest in the country among the 20 markets with the most new industrial construction, “the depth of occupier demand to absorb new supply is less certain.”

— Denver Post reporter Jessica Alvarado Gamez contributed to this report.

The withdrawal of the request for the city to annex 800 acres in Douglas County was made official Tuesday by the Castle Pines City Council. At the meeting, elected leaders passed a resolution devoting the next four months to hammering out an annexation policy for the fast-growing city that straddles Interstate 25 between Lone Tree and Castle Rock. It will grant no new annexations during that time.

The council had been set to vote on the Crowsnest annexation request in April, but it faced stiff opposition from a group of residents who felt the project was too dense for a county that is still characterized by wide swaths of rural territory.

Developer VT Crowfoot Valley Landco LLC declined to tell The Denver Post whether it would try again this summer to annex the property, which sits at the southwest corner of Crowfoot Valley and South Chambers roads in unincorporated Douglas County. The limited liability company was formed in September and shares an Englewood mailing address with Ventana Capital.

In a , VT Crowfoot Valley said it “reserves all rights with respect to any future petition, application, amendment request, or other entitlement relating to the property.”

Donna Cook, a Castle Pines resident who helped form the citizen group and led the fight against the project, called this week’s move “a huge win for the city.”

She and a group of neighbors argued that annexation of the Crowsnest site would lead to the construction of an overly dense development that is incompatible with the area’s bucolic character. Aside from homes, the project would include about 120 acres devoted to commercial uses.

Further, opponents argued, VT Crowfoot Valley proposed a flagpole annexation, using Crowfoot Valley Road as a narrow connecting conduit to physically link Castle Pines to the Crowsnest site.

They called Crowsnest a “remote, disconnected island that would burden existing taxpayers with unsustainable service costs.”

VT Crowfoot Valley argues that Crowsnest’s plan is less dense than neighborhoods in nearby Parker and will be a multimillion-dollar boon for Castle Pines. It would also devote 132 acres to open space.

Cook said her group would closely watch how Castle Pines’ council crafts the city’s annexation policy over the next few months to determine whether to resume the battle against Crowsnest, should the developer submit another application.

“We would indeed fight, depending on what the final annexation policy states, to ensure that any future annexation is in the best interests of the city,” she said.

and were the first measures introduced in their respective chambers this legislative session — a point Polis emphasized as showing state government’s continued focus on housing.

HB-1001, dubbed the HOME Act — for Housing Opportunities Made Easier — gives nonprofits and certain government agencies, such as the Regional Transportation District in metro Denver and school districts, the ability to build housing on their property. SB-1 allows counties to spend their property tax revenue on local housing authorities and workforce housing and to sell property to build affordable housing.

“This should also be viewed as additive to other steps that we have taken,” Polis said ahead of signing the bills. “Partnering with the legislature, we’re truly beginning to chip away at the high cost of housing by breaking down barriers, allowing housing to be built, to unlock affordability and opportunity.”

Rep. Andrew Boesenecker, a Fort Collins Democrat and lead sponsor on both bills, said HB-1001 in particular was about finding ways to build affordable housing “faster and cheaper” than existing processes. The measures also come down to “the fabric of our communities,” he said.

“What are we saying as a state when people cannot afford to teach and live in the same district? When folks can’t afford to work at a grocery store and also find housing in a school district that works for their kids?” Boesenecker said. “This is about a basic, I think, agreement of who we are as a state and that our state is open for all, welcome for all, and that we will continue today to take bold steps forward in terms of how are we able to house everybody.”

SB-1 was the focus of broad agreement in each chamber and bipartisan sponsorship in the House.

HB-1001, however, faced opposition from several local governments and the Colorado Municipal League, which represents many cities and towns. Kevin Bommer, the executive director of the league, said the two measures stood in contrast.

He and member municipalities agree that the state has an affordable housing crisis; SB-1 gives cities options to address it, while HB-1001 forces state mandates that bypass local planning, Bommer said. People already choose local leadership to make local decisions — they don’t need statewide lawmakers stepping in, he argued.

“Our state government can’t decide what it wants to be,” Bommer said. “It wants to be a helper when there’s something it likes, and it wants to be an opponent of local government when there’s something it doesn’t like.”

A frequent opponent of Polis’ proposed land-use measures, Bommer said he “looks forward to working with the next administration to reset the state and local partnership and work to that end.” Polis is in his last year as governor.

Polis and other supporters of the measures countered that HB-1001 will bring more local entities into the fold to find solutions to local housing. But, they noted, these laws won’t solve the problems on their own.

“There is no silver bullet for solving (the housing) problem, but there are many silver BBs,” Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat and sponsor of SB-1, said. “And today’s bills are two of those BBs.”

The zoning changes were designed to encourage construction of denser housing in Colorado’s fifth-largest city. Ballots for the April 7 special election, which , will be sent to voters starting Monday as Lakewood plays host to the latest Colorado battle over housing density.

The issue committee Make Lakewood Livable — which supports keeping Lakewood’s rezoning ordinances — has pulled in since the start of the year, while three committees urging voters to scrap the zoning changes have raised just under $40,000, according to reports filed by March 9.

The pro-rezoning side has pulled down big-dollar contributions from developers — $10,000 from Cardel Homes and $50,000 from Boulder-based Conscience Bay — while its top donor is Action Now Initiative. The Houston-based nonprofit advocacy organization, which is a part of gave Make Lakewood Livable $75,000.

Arnold Ventures was launched by John Arnold, a former Enron executive and hedge fund manager who previously spent in support of Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s election and a 2024 Denver affordable housing sales tax proposal that was narrowly rejected by voters.

The top contribution on the side attempting to repeal Lakewood’s rezoning was $2,500.

“Ours is a true grassroots campaign,” said Karin Schantz, who supports undoing the zoning changes that she feels threaten rural neighborhoods like hers. “I chose my neighborhood because I wanted to be in the agricultural part of the city.”

Schantz, who has kept horses, chickens and goats on her tree-shaded Morse Park property over the nearly 20 years she has lived there, worries that Lakewood’s rezoning will allow “cluster homes” and other higher-density housing types to take root next to her half-acre property.

“It was a blanket rezoning of all of Lakewood,” said Schantz, who established the issue committee Imagine Lakewood to combat the rezoning. “And it’s really affecting the historic older neighborhoods.”

Sophia Mayott-Guerrero, a former Lakewood City Council member who now serves as campaign manager for Make Lakewood Livable, said the city spent more than two years — across 30 public meetings — hammering out the zoning changes.

The new code allows diverse housing stock anywhere in the city, limits new home sizes to 5,000 square feet, and encourages the conversion of vacant or underused commercial buildings to housing. Some of the housing types pushed by rezoning advocates are duplexes, triplexes and accessory dwelling units that come with less square footage but provide more dwelling units per acre than traditional standalone homes.

“The zoning code is designed to foster the type of housing that is built for the missing middle,” Mayott-Guerrero said, referring to types of residential buildings that can accommodate multiple families but aren’t as big as an apartment building. “The idea that we can keep structuring our housing in the same way and get a different result doesn’t make sense to me.”

Home prices in metro Denver have been a problem, especially for working-class people and young families, for years. Last month, the median price of a single-family home came in at $630,000, a 2.4% increase from the price in January.

But signs of relief for homebuyers have popped up in the last couple of years, with a recent report from First American Data & Analytics finding that the Denver region recorded the biggest drop in starter home prices over the past year of any major metropolitan area.

The battle over affordable housing runs deep in Colorado, with the state mandating higher density in recent years and, in turn, being sued by cities that claim the legislation treads on their home-rule authority. Last fall, Littleton voters passed a measure that better protects single-family home neighborhoods from multifamily housing projects.

Dissatisfied Lakewood residents collected more than 10,000 signatures last fall in a challenge to the council’s rezoning ordinances. In January, the council voted to send the four questions to next month’s special election.

Zach Martinez, the director of policy and advocacy at Gary Advocacy, says Lakewood’s rezoning ordinances are exactly what Colorado cities need to pass to make life more affordable for residents.

“The two things that are most costly for families are housing and child care,” he said. “The general approach in Lakewood is good because it allows people to build more housing on smaller pieces of land.”

Gary Advocacy is the policy arm of the philanthropic organization Gary Community Ventures, which was once headed by Johnston. The organization gave $25,000 to Make Lakewood Livable.

“People need affordable homes and that’s our priority,” Martinez said.

Charlie Anderson, the executive vice president of infrastructure for Arnold Ventures, echoed that sentiment in a statement.

“A lack of housing supply, particularly starter homes, has led to an affordability crisis for Coloradans,” he wrote. “Arnold Ventures has provided grants to support efforts in Colorado and across the country, including work in Lakewood, to build homes faster, better, and at lower cost, making housing more affordable for families and workers.”

Make Lakewood Livable is supported by a , including Housing Forward Colorado and Metro West Housing Solutions. It also has the backing of the Jefferson County commissioners and U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen and former U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter.

But the , the issue committee that has raised the most money on the repeal side, takes pride in not having big backing from “national or state advocacy groups parachuting into local issues.” It describes its campaign as one “started by local residents.”

Cathy Kentner, who heads up Lakewood for All — another group supporting the repeal effort — said the city’s rezoning initiative would do little to bring down home prices. It leaves too much power in the hands of developers to build what pencils out best for them, rather than focusing on building an affordable product, she said.

“This new zoning is likely to reduce homeownership opportunities because it allows an investor to replace a single-family home with a multiplex,” she said. “A ‘no’ vote benefits corporations and the wealthy elite, and a ‘yes’ vote is for the people.”

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser backed Colorado’s existing rules — which have drawn the ire of the Trump administration — during separate, hour-long forums focused on Latino issues. While hitting familar lines about the economy and President Donald Trump, Bennet and Weiser each highlighted their prior history on immigration, including Bennet’s work on a and Weiser’s lawsuit against a Mesa County sheriff’s deputy who tipped off Immigration and Customs Enforcement about a University of Utah student who was later arrested and detained.

They also tied their own personal stories as the sons of immigrants to people “fleeing desperate situations,” as the attorney general put it. His mother, who was in attendance Sunday, was born in a Nazi concentration camp, while Bennet told the crowd at the hotel in downtown Denver that much of his Polish mother’s family were killed in the Holocaust.

But it was Weiser who received the lion’s share of applause and cheers from the crowd of roughly 150 people Sunday. The room clapped when he described his office’s “59 … and counting” lawsuits against the Trump administration, and again when he accused unnamed people of trying to “be nice” and “accommodate” Trump by voting to confirm the president’s agriculture secretary and trying to provide immigrants’ data to ICE. The line appeared to be a swipe at both Bennet, who voted to confirm Brooke Rollins to head the Department of Agriculture, and Gov. Jared Polis, who fought to turn over some employment records to ICE.

“One of us is working at the state level, knows our state really well,” Weiser said of the contrast between himself and Bennet. “And the other is in Washington, with 17 years of experience, where we should keep him, serving us where he can best use this avenue for Colorado.”

The forums were jointly held by Voces Unidas and the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights, Latino and immigrant advocacy groups. The event, held in downtown Denver, came three and a half months before the primary election that will give Bennet or Weiser pole position to replace the term-limited Polis next year.

Latinos represent the largest minority group in Colorado, of the state’s roughly 6 million residents, and like much of the rest of the state’s voters, Latinos have consistently ranked Colorado’s high cost of living as their top issue, including in polling released late last year. Both Bennet and Weiser pledged to build more affordable housing should they be elected governor, and each criticized the achievement gap between Latino and white students, which Bennet called “intolerable.”

But anxiety over Trump’s mass deportation campaign is also pervasive, that November poll found: Forty percent of the registered voters who responded to the survey said that they or their communities feared arrest by immigration authorities, even if they were U.S. citizens or have some form of legal status.

Bennet, who has previously been dismissive of Weiser’s lawsuit tally, said the next governor needed to focus not only on “Trump, Trump, Trump” but on a vision “for the productive and positive role that immigrants and immigration play in our economy.”

“We have not done what needs to be done,” he said of efforts to improve Colorado’s cost of living. “If we had what needed to be done in Colorado, we wouldn’t have the second-most expensive housing in America. We wouldn’t have the fifth-most expensive child care in America.”

Asked about several bills in front of the legislature this year, Bennet said he needed to take a look at them before he could commit to supporting them. The bills would require more data collection and training related to ; more ; and in the state. But he voiced general support for further ICE regulations, and he highlighted his past work on evictions.

As for the temperature bill, Bennet said the state needed to balance protecting workers with ensuring the state’s economy continued to grow. That drew a boo from one audience member, and when Bennet then suggested that “laws and regulations” in the state contributed to the closure of some businesses, a woman seated in front of him gave him a double thumbs-down.

In response, Bennet pointed to the poll showing that affordability was the top issue for Latinos, and he argued that a growing economy was necessary to improve wages.

Weiser, who took the stage after Bennet and was asked the same questions, expressed general support for the goals of the legislation. He said his office was still studying the evictions bill and that he was offering support on the ICE measure to ensure it would survive legal challenges.

As for the temperature measure, he said he supported it in the long term but that its projected cost would likely pose a significant barrier amid the legislature’s ongoing budget crisis.

Neither COLOR nor Voces Unidas has yet endorsed a candidate in the race. The primary election is .