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.

Each year, roughly 20,000 young Americans age out of the foster care system. A quarter will experience homelessness, many struggle to find steady work, and roughly 21% of individuals who went through foster care suffer from substance abuse.

That should not happen in a nation built on the promise of opportunity and the American Dream.

Under President Donald Trump’s leadership, we are bridging the gap between foster care and adulthood, ensuring that young Americans leaving foster care have a real pathway to independence.

At the Department of Housing and Urban Development, we are working closely with local housing authorities, child welfare agencies, and community partners to deliver practical, results-driven solutions.

Through the , our team empowers public housing authorities to provide housing for young adults transitioning out of foster care. Youth are also provided with supportive services, which may include job training and financial skills, to equip them with tools to live successful, happy lives.

Under the Trump administration, HUD has supported more than 1,200 youth with roughly $16.6 million in Foster Youth to Independence funds. We have over 7,500 awards in more than 360 public housing agencies nationwide — including 187 active awards in Colorado that support 50 young Americans in Denver.

Foster Youth to Independence is part of the Trump administration’s broader commitment to forge a stronger future for foster youth. That commitment was reinforced in the president����ap executive order, “Fostering the Future for American Children and Families,” which was led by first lady Melania Trump and mobilizes public-private partnerships to forge educational and job opportunities for foster youth.

As part of this effort, HUD, , are hosting a series of nationwide roundtables. Our goal is to hear directly from former foster youth who are willing to share about the unique obstacles they face when transitioning out of the system. Our very first roundtable took place right here in Denver last week, and it was edifying to speak with young Americans who emphasized that they need grace, compassion, and the tools to achieve self-sufficiency.

These discussions are grounded in the commonsense idea that those who actually experienced and lived through the foster care system are best positioned to find solutions. What we hear will directly inform how we tailor policies using a whole-of-government approach to ensure that support is responsive, targeted, and focused on long-term success that is built on a foundation of financial stability.

First lady Melania Trump has been leading the way through , relentlessly championing more opportunities for success for youth who have experienced foster care. She has worked to get foster youth the resources and assistance they need, providing millions of dollars for the Foster Youth to Independence initiative at HUD. And the first lady helped smooth the path for youth leaving foster care by securing $30 million in a funding bill earlier this year.

The Psalmist declares that children are a “reward” and a “heritage from the Lord.” The young are our heritage and our hope for the future, and they need our protection and service to bridge the abyss of an uncertain future after foster care. Under President Trump’s leadership and with the first lady’s vital work, HUD is coming alongside foster youth to make sure they can enter the future with certainty, hope, and everything they need to forge their own paths.

Scott Turner was confirmed by the United States Senate on Feb. 5, 2025, to be the 19th secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Turner previously led the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council, driving the Opportunity Zones Initiative. A lifelong Texan, Turner represented the 33rd District in the Texas State Legislature and played nine seasons in the National Football League. 

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“They needed to have, really, a better plan in place before they started executing,” O’Brien said in an interview with The Denver Post.

In a response to , Johnston’s office sent out its own news release to take issue with several of its findings.

“The city’s review of this report finds it misstates key facts and is in some instances willfully misleading,” Johnston’s office wrote.

The two sides were disagreeing publicly — and not for the first time — over an audit report that analyzed the All in Mile High homelessness program between July 2023, when Johnston took office, and June 2025. Johnston had promised to end street homelessness while running for office, and he launched the initiative in the second half of 2023 by opening a network of temporary shelters in former hotels and new micro-communities that used tiny homes and other structures.

One of the key disagreements Thursday was over whether the mayor’s office underreported the cost of the program to the City Council by about $20 million. According to the auditor’s office, the mayor’s office told the council late last year that the initative’s total cost in its first two years was about $158 million.

But the auditor’s office said expenses in the city’s “system of record” were estimated at $178 million in the same period.

Johnston’s office said the discrepancy came from auditors including costs for some homelessness services that city officials didn’t consider part of All in Mile High — like cold weather shelters and noncongregate shelters that had opened under previous administrations.

“It����ap just inaccurate, unfortunately,” Johnston said in an interview with The Post. “Not a single dollar was overspent, not a single dollar is not accounted for.”

Johnston met an initial goal of moving 1,000 people indoors from street encampments by the end of 2023. As of Thursday, the city’s counted 3,530 moves of people into All In Mile High’s noncongregate shelters since July 2023, with some of those involving the same people more than once. A broader measure that includes other programs says the city has moved about 7,300 people into more permanent housing during Johnston’s administration.

Annual point-in-time counts have found that the number of people sleeping on Denver’s streets went down by 45% between early 2023 and early 2025, but advocates for homeless people dispute the reliability of those single-day counts, saying weather and other factors can influence the results.

Besides questions about cost reporting, raised concerns about how the city reported outcomes for people in the program, how and where it selected locations for shelter sites, and how it awarded some contracts.

On Thursday, both sides discussed the report during an Audit Committee meeting.

After audit staffers began the meeting by acknowledging what the homelessness program had accomplished, the two sides went back and forth over whether the mayor’s office was doing enough to track its expenses, inform the public on the program’s progress and create strategic plans.

“I think that shows there’s a systematic problem with how you guys track the expenditure amount,” he said. “I think there is a problem.”

Such assertions drew pushback from the mayor’s administration. The report, the committee meeting and Johnston’s response also amounted to a parade of comments from both sides as they made and rebuffed criticisms about how the other side had behaved during the audit process.

According to the auditor’s office, the mayor’s office failed to provide documents showing overall spending and refused to give access to expense-tracking spreadsheets.

“The Mayor’s Office also said the $20.1 million in underreporting was unintentional,” according to a news release from the auditor’s office.

Johnston’s office said officials did provide those documents and added about the underreporting characterization: “The Auditor’s Office said this, not the Mayor’s Office. We did not say that, as we do not believe we underreported any figures.”

Tensions between O’Brien’s and Johnston’s offices intensified last year during the budget process, as they fought publicly over the mayor’s attempt to cut O’Brien’s budget during a citywide budget crisis. At the time, O’Brien said Johnston was interfering with his work as a separately elected official.

The mayor’s office agreed with seven of the 12 recommendations made in the All In Mile High audit report.

Amid the back and forth at Thursday’s meeting, Schafer at one point expressed a wish that there had been more dialogue on some issues during the audit process.

Cole Chandler, a senior adviser to Johnston on homelessness,  responded plainly: “Our relationship just doesn’t lend itself to that kind of conversation. That����ap not the way those meetings are set up, and not the outcome they’re seeking. So I would encourage you to go back and look at the way you’re structuring that and structuring that partnership moving forward.”

The auditor’s office has announced plans to investigate several other city initiatives this year, including the 16th Street mall reconstruction, Vision Zero efforts to reduce pedestrian deaths and the city budget process.

He said an unstable woman out on his patio was trying to break down his door. Video footage later showed that she had already tried to do something similar next door.

“I’m afraid that had I not been home, she would have gotten a rock and broken a window and gone in,” Johnson said.

“I’m yelling at her, and she’s yelling at me, telling me that she needs to get in, and she’s allowed in and she’s going to break in. … I really thought that I was going to get physical right there.”

Though it can’t be said for certain where the woman came from, Johnson points the finger at , a homeless shelter across the street at 2323 Curtis St. that operates only during the daytime. He and several of his neighbors said the shelter cut its after-hours security at the start of February, deteriorating the safety of the block in the evenings and nights.

“If there was an officer there, it would have been a nonissue,” Johnson said.

Since late 2023, according to neighbors, SFC has had at least one police officer patrolling the block for several hours most days after the shelter closes, helping the homeless move to another shelter and breaking up disturbances.

“With security, we see a lot quieter of nights and generally less people hanging around. … Very recently, there’s been really noisy nights and mornings, [and] lots of people camping,” said Ashley Geisel, Johnson’s neighbor.

At one point, Geisel said she tried to move some folks along herself. One person began hurling rocks at her house in “retaliation.”

“We feel like a normal street when security is there,” she said.

Johnson, Geisel and others say SFC, led by CEO Nancy Burke, didn’t tell them of the security change — even though they thought she was supposed to.

In late 2023, neighbors began discussing a host of issues with the shelter, hoping to ultimately strike a “good neighbor agreement,” in which the shelter would agree to certain conditions. A city-hired mediator was involved, as was Councilman Darrell Watson, who represents the area.

But the talks collapsed last March when the SFC purchased another property on the block, which residents said misled those who were concerned about how SFC would use the property.

Read more from our partner, .

The 68-page report, released last week in collaboration with Denver’s office, draws on survey responses and direct feedback from scores of restaurant owners and real-estate brokers.

The survey and report, commissioned last year by the city, tourism board and Austin-based restaurant financier , were the product of a months-long study led by industry professionals Dana Query and Adam Schlegel. The report refers to the local food scene as being at a “critical inflection point” with costs rising faster than revenue.

Many of those surveyed said homelessness, loitering, drug use and public nuisances, along with protracted and intensive municipal construction projects, deter customers from visiting establishments. Restaurants have resorted to reducing the number of days they’re open for lunch or winding down earlier at night, according to the report.

The report’s findings also addressed the costs of labor due to the rising minimum wage, and called for the city to match the state’s base wage for tipped workers — a conversation now underway at Denver City Hall.

Denver’s minimum wage is $19.29 an hour, or $16.27 if that employee is tipped. Colorado’s minimum wage — if no local minimum applies — is $15.16 an hour, or $12.14 with tips.

Hourly labor costs in Denver increased by 50% to 55% between 2019 and 2024, the survey found. The report attributed that increase to the local minimum wage rising during that period and outpacing the state’s minimum wage, as well as state credit given to restaurants with tipping that has remained the same.

The survey found a 23% increase in the median commercial rental rate since 2019. The cost of goods, insurance and utilities rose by about a fifth, according to the report. Restaurant owners reported their earnings dropping by approximately the same amount in that period.

“The data make clear that Denver’s restaurants are facing an environment in which overhead and labor costs, demand, employment and operating conditions are misaligned in ways that cannot self-correct without intervention,” the report’s conclusion says.

The report gives a small audit of each department involved in the process of opening a restaurant in Denver. The city’s excise and public health departments were well-rated for their professionalism, communication and turnaround times.

Other parts of the process, including acquiring permits for zoning and from the fire department, were critiqued for their inconsistent turnaround times. A majority of survey respondents said Community Planning and Development had a poor plan review process. Operators also had mixed opinions on the overarching enforcement of inspectors at Public Health and Environment.

The city’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, or DOTI, was seen as most deficient among operators and brokers. The report’s authors described the department as lacking in consistency. They mentioned procedures to receive right-of-way, sewer use and drainage permits as being the most difficult to grasp.

National brands interested in opening in Denver walked away from projects because of the long permitting period, according to brokers surveyed for the report. The report does not identify the brokers and restaurant operators, nor their businesses.

The report’s authors presented their findings to several agencies last month, Schlegel said.

“Nobody necessarily likes to be called out,” he said of local regulatory officials. “This is a group of people who see the opportunity, who see that there are ways there can be improvement and… equally want to be heard.”

The transportation and infrastructure office accepted the report’s comments Monday.

“This report provides clear-eyed feedback to ensure we’re meeting the needs of local businesses, and we have already gotten to work launching many of the improvements called for here,” DOTI spokesperson Nancy Kuhn said in a statement. “The report also provides a fair assessment of the challenges being experienced by the restaurant industry today and how we, as a city and a department, can support.

“It����ap clear there is more to be done to ensure support for our restaurants, and we’ll continue to work on the recommendations the report contains.”

Restaurant operators acknowledged their own faults for lengthening the permit process, including by providing incorrect or incomplete information, according to the report. “Many explained that the complexity of starting a business or navigating construction requirements exceeds their expertise, making mistakes inevitable,” it says.

The report commends the steps that Mayor Mike Johnston and the city have taken to reduce homelessness and bolster tourism downtown.

“It’s a really good nod from the mayor’s office that they were willing to do this,” Schlegel said of the survey. “It’s really good that they wanted to actually bring people with true restaurant experience to have these discussions.”

Restaurant associations in Denver reaffirmed the concerns shared in the report last week.

“We’re grateful for everything the city is already doing to make it easier for restaurants to successfully navigate the permitting process, but there’s a lot more work to be done,” Sonia Riggs, president and CEO of the , said in a statement. “There are simply too many regulations and too much red tape in Colorado for businesses to thrive, and we’d like to collaborate with city leaders to help streamline agency processes wherever possible.”

Representatives for about 160 restaurants were surveyed for the report, according to its executive summary. About the same number participated in roundtable discussions. Query and Schlegel held 50 interviews as part of their study.

One comment resonated with Schlegel from one of his first interviews for the project. The operator, he said, referred to Denver as the “city of ‘No.'”

“Do we want to be and can we be a city of ‘Yes?'” Schlegel asked.

Calderón, who is the third active candidate in the race, placed third in the last mayoral election, narrowly missing the final runoff. She also placed third when she ran in 2019. She announced her new campaign Tuesday.

“Across neighborhoods, people are urging me to run and telling me the same thing: despite Mike Johnston’s campaign promises, things have only gotten harder,” she said in a news release.

Calderón is the executive director of Women Uprising, an organization that trains progressive women in Colorado to run for office. Calderón helped form the group after a similar organization, Emerge Colorado, .

In her announcement, Calderón focused on criticisms of Johnston, who she said has been bad for Denver. Calderón said she decided to run for mayor again after Johnston laid off 169 employees last August in response to an estimated $200 million budget gap.

“Someone has to stand up and take him on. I came very close to beating him once, and I am the best person to challenge him and win,” she said.

A spokesman for Johnston defended his record Tuesday, referencing his work on homelessness and violence reduction.

“As (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) threatens cities and President Trump attacks the rule of law, Mayor Johnston is leading the fight for Denver and our values while still delivering historic wins for our city,” wrote Jon Ewing. “The work is never over, but we would put our record up against anyone’s.”

Calderón was also a frequent critic of Johnston’s predecessor, Michael Hancock. She butted heads with him often while serving as the top staffer for former City Councilwoman Candi CdeBaca.

During her campaign, she plans to focus on cost-of-living issues, community-based safety efforts, a housing-first homelessness strategy, bike and pedestrian safety, workers’ issues and small businesses.

Campaign materials obtained by The Denver Post included promises like reinstating laid-off workers, ending the city’s contract with the controversial surveillance company Flock, building more affordable housing and expanding universal child care.

Calderón, a fourth-generation Denverite, holds four degrees — a bachelor’s in English, a master’s in liberal studies, a law degree and a doctorate in education.

Two other candidates, both of whom also ran in 2023, have also filed to run: Aurelio Martinez and Robert Treta. Johnston told The Post in July that he intends to run for reelection, but he hasn’t yet formally filed.

Johnston became mayor in 2023 after soundly defeating Kelly Brough, the former CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, by more than 10 percentage points in a runoff election. The two faced off after an initial general election with 17 candidates.

Calderón formally filed for the election Tuesday morning. She plans to host a campaign kick-off event Feb. 11 at Su Teatro Cultural and Performing Arts Center.

Elijah Caudill, 25, is mentally incompetent to proceed, Judge Karen Brody ruled during a brief hearing Friday. The criminal case against Caudill will be put on hold while he undergoes treatment aimed at restoring him to competency at the Colorado Mental Health Hospital in Pueblo.

Caudill is accused of stabbing four strangers along the 16th Street mall on Jan. 11 and 12, 2025, in four separate attacks: three back-to-back stabbings in the span of 42 minutes on Jan. 11, and then a fourth attack on Jan. 12.

Two people, 71-year-old Celinda Levno�����Ի� 34-year-old Nicholas Burkett, were killed. Two additional victims were wounded but survived.

Prosecutors with the Denver District Attorney’s Office did not challenge the finding that Caudill was incompetent to proceed. He will undergo 91 days of treatment before returning to court for an update on May 1.

16th Street Mall stabbing suspect����ap path marked by mental illness, homelessness, drug use

Caudill's arrest in the 16th Street mall stabbings came after years of homelessness, illegal drug use, escalating violence, jail, prison and severe mental illness, a Denver Post investigation found. He said he heard voices in his head that told him to "do bad things," and was connected to resources and help several times before the fatal attacks.

In court Friday, a handcuffed Caudill swayed on his feet and fidgeted during the hearing, swinging his head.

�ճ����competency process is designed to protect the constitutional rights of people who are mentally ill or developmentally disabled by ensuring they are not prosecuted for crimes when they are too sick or too disabled to understand the court process and to help defend themselves.

A competency evaluation centers on two prongs: whether defendants have a factual and rational understanding of the court proceedings, and whether defendants can consult with their attorneys and assist in their own defense. Defendants who cannot meet those thresholds are considered mentally incompetent to proceed and must undergo treatment to be restored to competency before their criminal cases can proceed.

Defendants who ultimately cannot be restored to competency cannot be prosecuted, and they cannot be held in jail. Such defendants must be released or civilly committed.

"We are in a hold mode, we have a mental health stay in the case, I think we need to just see what happens with the treatment," Brody said in court Friday.

The restoration process can take months or years, and can stall cases indefinitely.

The attacker in the 2015 Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood mass shooting was found incompetent to proceed for a decade, and was never convicted in the attack. He died in a medical center for federal prisoners in November.

The City Council decided early Tuesday morning to send its zoning updates, which are intended to spur greater density and the building of more affordable homes in the city of 156,000, to an April 7 special election.

“This is a consequential issue for the city of Lakewood — I think we all agree on that — and I hope that everyone will get out and vote,” Councilman Roger Low said at the end of a Monday night meeting that stretched more than five hours and ended after midnight.

Earlier in the meeting, the council approved a supplemental budget appropriation of $42 million to refund dozens of telecommunications companies for years of improperly collected business and occupation taxes. Last September, the that the tax had been imposed in violation of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, which requires any new tax in Colorado to first get voter approval in an election.

The $42,154,189 the city must return to 177 companies represents more than 13% of the city’s 2026 budget.

On the zoning matter, the council passed four ordinances in the last half of 2025 that together encouraged 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.

The measures allow diverse housing types — like duplexes and townhomes — anywhere in the city. They also limit new home sizes to 5,000 square feet and urge the conversion of vacant or underused commercial buildings to housing.

The new rules went into effect on Jan. 1.

But collected more than 10,000 signatures last fall to place four measures on a proposed March 31 special election ballot — changed to April 7 by the council — that will give voters the final say. The successful petition left the council with the choice of either repealing the ordinances or sending the matter to a special election.

Opponents say the city’s zoning changes will endanger the character of older neighborhoods and won’t actually help reduce home prices.

“These zoning ordinances are not good for Lakewood, because they reduce transparency and have development decisions occur behind closed doors,” said a rezoning opponent, Cathy Kentner, a former Lakewood mayoral candidate who has long fought density efforts in the city. “These ordinances would encourage overdevelopment at the cost of our natural environment and with no guarantee of affordability that we are all looking for.”

In a news release issued last week, fellow opponent and lifelong Lakewood resident Regina Hopkins called the city’s rezoning efforts “a blueprint for crammed, profit-driven development, bulldozed trees and ignored infrastructure.”

“Developers do not build for affordability — they build for profit,” she said.

The resistance in Lakewood echoes what occurred in nearby Littleton last November, where voters approved a charter amendment that will make it more difficult to build anything but single-family homes in a large chunk of the city.

Supporters of Lakewood’s redrafted zoning regulations say the status quo is simply not working. Young families, they say, are finding it increasingly impossible to find a reasonably priced starter home.

“There’s nothing about the new zoning code that allows for the bulldozing of neighborhoods — it’s completely disinformation,” Lakewood resident Shane Sarnak said during public comment Monday night.

The median price of a detached home sold last year in metro Denver was $650,000, up 0.39% from 2024 and also from 2022, when the median price was $647,500. Median condo and townhome prices looked more fatigued, falling 2.85% from 2024 to $391,900 in 2025.

A collection of bills passed by state lawmakers in 2024 was designed to increase higher-density living and bring home prices down. Those measures were quickly challenged by several Front Range municipalities in court, with the plaintiffs claiming the legislature and Gov. Jared Polis were encroaching on their home-rule powers to set land-use rules.

His 2026 goals largely build on longstanding challenges facing Denver. They come after his office issued a report card last week touting several measures of progress last year on street homelessness, safety — including a nearly 50% drop in homicides — climate resiliency and downtown revitalization, with the reopening of the 16th Street mall.

But some of his 2025 goals weren’t fully met. While more people were moved into temporary shelters, overall homelessness increased. The 1,744 people counted as being moved into more permanent housing fell short of the 2,000-person goal. And by his office’s measure, the city made it 77% of the way toward fulfilling a pledge to add or preserve 3,000 units of affordable housing, though a news release cited funding cuts at the federal and state levels as hindrances.

On Monday, Johnston said the city would build on “proven” strategies to achieve his goals for this year.

“We will continue restoring trust between police and community, focusing intensively on areas seeing the most crime and the least joy,” Johnston said, according to a news release. “We will build more housing for people of all income brackets and ensure individuals experiencing homelessness receive constant and consistent support in making the leap to self-sufficiency.”

Among the new goals:

• Reducing gun-related homicides by 10% citywide, and shootings by 20% in high-risk neighborhoods. Last year, Denver recorded 37 homicides, the third-lowest total since 1990.
• Achieving a 75% reduction in street homelessness, when compared to 2023 figures, by early 2027. The annual point-in-time count, which is imperfect but offers a snapshot of homelessness, is conducted in late January each year. Unsheltered homelessness decreased by 45% between 2023 and 2025, according to those year’s counts, but advocates for homeless people say cold-weather shelters and other factors can obscure the figures.
• Increasing affordable housing units by 2,500 and approving permits for 5,000 more new homes of any kind.
• Filling 3 million square feet of office and retail space downtown and staying on track with “catalytic” downtown developments. That would put a dent in downtown’s office vacancy rate, which has hovered around 38% lately, according to CBRE. The city aims to attract businesses downtown, invest in entrepreneurs and support office-to-residential conversions.
• Supporting the installation of 5,000 clean energy systems and the addition of 50 acres of green infrastructure, including pavement removals, new rain gardens, and the planting of trees and native vegetation.

The Aspen, formerly a DoubleTree hotel in northeast Denver, has space for up to 250 people in its ballroom and will be open as freezing temperatures pummel the Mile High City for the next few days.

Johnston’s decision came after the city’s four other emergency shelters reached capacity on Thursday, the first night of the cold snap. The temperatures, expected to fall to near-zero Friday night and early Saturday, have the potential to cause frostbite in less than 30 minutes without proper attire.

“With life-threatening cold settling over the city and people at risk of suffering serious injury or death, Mayor Johnston informed Council this morning that we will be opening the ballrooms at 4040 Quebec (St.) for temporary emergency cold weather shelter,” spokesman Jon Ewing wrote in a statement Friday.

The near-failure to open needed cold-weather shelter space is just the latest chapter in an growing list of disagreements between the mayor and council members in which both sides have pointed fingers at one another.

Denver extends severe weather shelter activation — and adds space — as cold grips city

During a meeting on Dec. 8, 11 of the council's 13 members to use the Aspen's large space as a cold-weather shelter. (A separate contract with another provider, Urban Alchemy, covers the Aspen's day-to-day use as a noncongregate shelter in the city's homelessness initiative.)

Councilwoman Shontel Lewis, whose district includes the shelter, said at the time that the mayor had promised her in 2023 that the site wouldn’t be used for the purpose of cold-weather sheltering.

“My district is already overrepresented with shelters, with eight of them,” Lewis said. “This is ridiculous.”

Only Councilmen Kevin Flynn and Darrell Watson voted to approve the contract last month.

Another council-approved contract with Bayaud Works allows the city to use the ballroom space for short-term emergencies, Ewing said, and that is how the mayor's office was able to open it Friday.

Lewis has repeatedly asked the mayor's administration to spread out the locations of the city’s homelessness services since she joined the council in 2023. Now, she says the mayor’s office is manufacturing an emergency to sidestep her continued protestations.

Johnston "has failed to run the city with a long-term strategy,” she said in an interview Friday.

Lewis said there shouldn’t be a cold-weather shelter at the same place as noncongregate housing. Instead, she asked for the Aspen's ballroom to be used as a navigation center offering resources to homeless people.

But Johnston’s team said they were taken by surprise when the council rejected the contract just as the winter months were setting in and hadn't had nearly enough time to find enough shelter space since then.

“The real emergency is that it is 5 degrees outside and people are going to die if we don’t get them inside,” Ewing said.

The Aspen made the most sense to use, he said, because it����ap already set up with cots, showers and bathrooms. A site that's well-known among the city’s homeless population, it also mostly serves people who are already in that area, he said.

"We do not just have shelter sites lying around. There are only so many spaces, and there is a likelihood we would need to hold community meetings, go through a full council process and potentially even rezone," Ewing said.

He added that the city didn't plan to use the Aspen for cold-weather shelter next year. A new site for emergencies hasn’t been chosen yet, in part because of the limited options.

Lewis said Friday the mayor has “had three years to figure out what cold-weather sheltering should look like." She also said: "Of course I don’t want folks dying in our streets.”

The city’s sheltering needs have increased since 2023 because of a revised policy that now calls for opening emergency shelters when temperatures drop below 25 degrees, rather than 10 degrees back then, Ewing said.

While Denver’s weather is forecasted to be warmer on Monday, there’s no sign of thaw when it comes to the relationship between some council members and the mayor.

“It����ap the mayor's responsibility to run the city as the executive, and if he doesn’t run the city as the executive, then … we might need to switch seats,” Lewis said.

Ewing had his own retort: "It is not fair to cause a disruption and then blame us for scrambling to solve that issue."