(1) (a) The general assembly hereby
finds, determines, and declares that:
(I) Accessory dwelling units offer a way to provide compact, relatively
affordable housing in established neighborhoods with minimal impacts to
infrastructure and to supply new housing opportunities without added dispersed
low-density housing;
(II) Accessory dwelling units generate rental income to help homeowners
cover mortgage payments or other costs, which can be important for a variety of
residents, such as older homeowners on fixed incomes and low- and moderate-income homeowners;
(III) Accessory dwelling units provide families with options for
intergenerational living arrangements that enable child or elder care and aging in
place, and a 2021 survey by the AARP found that approximately seventy-five
percent of people fifty years of age or older want to stay in their homes or
communities for as long as they can. According to a 2018 study by the Center for
American Progress, fifty-one percent of Coloradans live in a child care desert-a
community where there are no child care providers or so few options that there are
more than three times as many children as there are licensed child care slots. These
child care deserts are situated within rural, suburban, and urban communities and
are a major reason for working parents to leave the workforce.
(IV) Accessory dwelling units are often occupied at low to no rent by family
members, and if they are rented privately, their rents are relatively affordable
because of their small size;
(V) As Colorado's population ages and typical household size continues to
decrease, accessory dwelling units offer more compact housing options that align
with the state's changing demographics, and Coloradans over sixty-five years of
age are the fastest-growing age cohort in Colorado according to the state
demography office;
(VI) Accessory dwelling units enable seniors to downsize, move into
accessible units, or live with family or a caregiver while remaining in their
communities. A 2018 AARP survey found that sixty-seven percent of adults would
consider living in an accessory dwelling unit to be close to someone but still have a
separate space. Most seniors do not live in homes that are accessible, even though
disability is prevalent among the senior population and increases with age. Less
than four percent of existing housing units in the United States are estimated to be
livable for people with moderate mobility difficulties, according to Housing for an
Aging Population in the journal Housing Policy Debate.
(VII) Relative to dispersed, low-density development, compact infill
development, including accessory dwelling unit development, reduces water use,
greenhouse gas emissions, infrastructure costs, and household energy and
transportation costs;
(VIII) Accessory dwelling units use significantly less energy for heating and
cooling than single-unit detached dwellings because of their smaller size, which
reduces household energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions. Accessory
dwelling units can reduce lifetime carbon dioxide emissions by forty percent
compared to medium-sized single-family homes, according to a report from the
Oregon department of environmental quality. Reducing emissions from the housing
sector is critical for meeting the state's greenhouse gas emissions targets
established in section 25-7-102. According to The Carbon Footprint of Household
Energy Use in the United States in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, reducing floor space per capita is a critical strategy to reaching mid-century climate goals.
(IX) Compact infill development reduces water demand and infrastructure
costs by using less piping, which reduces water loss; includes less landscaped
space per unit; and makes better use of existing infrastructure.
(X) Accessory dwelling units reduce government capital and maintenance
costs for infrastructure since accessory dwelling units are built in existing
neighborhoods and have a relatively small impact on existing infrastructure.
National studies such as Relationships between Density and per Capita Municipal
Spending in the United States, published in Urban Science, have found that lower
density communities have higher government capital and maintenance costs for
water, sewer, and transportation infrastructure and lower property and sales tax
revenue. These increased costs are often borne by both state and local
governments.
(XI) A number of local land use laws prohibit homeowners from building an
accessory dwelling unit, or apply regulations to accessory dwelling units that
significantly limit their construction;
(XII) A number of municipalities have removed barriers to accessory dwelling
unit construction such as parking requirements, owner occupancy requirements,
and restrictive size and design limitations, which has resulted in accessory dwelling
unit permits increasing to ten to twenty percent of total new housing permits and
an overall increase in the total housing supply. Since California implemented
various reforms to encourage accessory dwelling unit construction, including
requiring cities to allow accessory dwelling units as a use by right, preventing the
imposition of parking requirements, and preventing owner occupancy requirements,
accessory dwelling unit construction has increased significantly in California.
Following reforms to California's accessory dwelling unit law in 2016, accessory
dwelling unit development has increased rapidly from around one thousand
accessory dwelling units permitted in 2016 to over twenty-four thousand in 2022, or
about twenty percent of new housing permits statewide, according to data from the
California Department of Housing and Community Development and analysis by the
Bipartisan Policy Center.
(XIII) Housing supply impacts housing affordability, and housing prices are
typically higher when housing supply is restricted by local land use regulations in a
metropolitan region, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research in
working papers such as Regulation and Housing Supply, The Impact of Zoning on
Housing Affordability, and The Impact of Local Residential Land Use Restrictions
on Land Values Across and Within Single Family Housing Markets;
(XIV) Increasing housing supply moderates price increases and improves
housing affordability across all incomes, according to studies such as The
Economic Implications of Housing Supply in the Journal of Economic Perspectives
and Supply Skepticism: Housing Supply and Affordability in the journal Housing
Policy Debate;
(XV) Academic research such as The Impact of Building Restrictions on
Housing Affordability in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Economic Policy
Review has identified zoning and other land use controls as a primary driver of
rising housing costs in the most expensive housing markets;
(XVI) Accessory dwelling units offer affordable and attainable options to live
in high-opportunity neighborhoods, which can help improve equity outcomes
regionally and statewide. An analysis of accessory dwelling unit permitting in
California found that accessory dwelling units are typically permitted on parcels
with relatively good access to jobs compared to surrounding areas, according to
Where Will Accessory Dwelling Units Sprout Up When a State Lets Them Grow?
Evidence From California in Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and
Research.
(XVII) Local government regulation of accessory dwelling units varies
significantly within regions and statewide in Colorado in terms of where they are
allowed, the dimensional and design restrictions applied, and other requirements.
This inconsistency inhibits the development of a robust market of accessory
dwelling unit developers, modular accessory dwelling unit designs, and associated
cost reductions. Colorado is similar to most states in this regard, and, according to
Zoning By a Thousand Cuts in the Pepperdine Law Review, which analyzed
accessory dwelling unit regulations across Connecticut, The high degree of
regulatory variation thwarts the development of prototype designs or prefabricated
[accessory dwelling units] that could satisfy different rules across jurisdictions.
(XVIII) More permissive regulation by local governments of accessory
dwelling units provides a reasonable chance for homeowners to construct or
convert an accessory dwelling unit and thereby increase housing supply, stabilize
housing costs, and contribute to affordable and equitable home ownership to
adequately meet the housing needs of a growing Colorado population.
(b) Therefore, the general assembly declares that increasing the housing
supply through the construction or conversion of accessory dwelling units is a
matter of mixed statewide and local concern.