Broomfield Kicks Off Pride Month Celebration With Raising of Inclusivity Flag

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BROOMFIELD, Colo. – On Thursday morning, Broomfield officials kicked off the city’s month-long Pride celebration at city hall.

City leaders held a brief ceremony before raising an inclusivity flag.

“It’s a celebration of freedom to pursue a happy life according to one’s own terms, embracing our diversity, and in an affirming way, actually saves lives,” Broomfield Mayor Guyleen Castriotta said.

Castriotta, the first openly LGBTQ+ mayor of Broomfield, said the city first designated June as Pride month four years ago, but this year feels different.

“In case you haven’t been following the harmful and discriminatory legislation being passed around the country, the LGBTQ community is being targeted in almost every state,” Castriotta said. “And this legislative session alone, 490 bills were introduced or passed to strip the equality and freedom away from members of the LGBT community.”

Broomfield resident Katie Ragsdale said legislation passing in other states inspired her to take part in this years Pride kickoff event in Broomfield.

“I have my son, Ozzie, my husband, Ben and our daughter, Louise with me…my husband and I are originally from Arkansas, which is a great place, but it’s kind of a bummer to see the news and the way the legislation is leaning in those places. So it felt kind of important to come and ensure support for things that we believe in and are important to us,” Ragsdale said.

Castriotta said she hopes Broomfield’s Pride celebrations inspire residents to get to know their neighbors.

“My hope is that more people in our community that had been living in the shadows come out and meet the other folks in the community. The first time we had our Pride fest two years ago, I was overwhelmed with the amount of people that I didn’t even know lived here. It was same-sex parents. It was parents of trans kids, and they made an effort to come speak to me and my wife and and say, ‘Look, you can be whoever you want to be. She’s the mayor. She’s important. She has a wife,’” Castriotta said.

Broomfield will also hold a Pride parade on Saturday, June 3 at 10 a.m. followed by a celebration at Midway Park.

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City Leaders Remain Opposed to Colorado Land Use Bill Even After Amendments

Proposed amendment would create ‘housing-forward community’ exemption.

Even as lawmakers work to modify a sweeping bill concerning land use in the state to assuage concerns about its reach, city leaders remain opposed to the legislation’s premise.

Senate Bill 23-213, championed by Gov. Jared Polis as a major legislative priority, is a multifaceted proposal to reform Colorado’s zoning codes to promote density and encourage housing production. As introduced, it would have required large cities in the state to upzone land that currently allows single-family homes, a provision that drew intense opposition from mayors and local leaders across the state who argued it usurped local control.

The bill was heavily amended Tuesday to roll back that preemption, among other changes. Cities would only need to allow multiplexes and middle housing options on 30% of the land currently zoned for single-family homes, prioritizing transit corridors.

It might not be enough, however, to win over city support.

“I feel the same way I felt before,” said Littleton Mayor Kyle Schlachter.

While city leaders generally agree on the bill’s goal — to increase housing, especially affordable units — they take issue with the preemptions it intends to set on land use and zoning decisions historically made at the local level. The amendments keep that intact.

“Fundamentally, the premise and principle of the bill has not changed. It is still an overreach and it is still taking away home rule authority from local municipalities,” Centennial Mayor Stephanie Piko said. “It is still taking land use decisions that have been part of local control for over 100 years and putting them in the hands of the state.”

Centennial is one of over 50 municipalities to oppose SB-213.

In some ways, Piko said, the amendments make the problem worse, since it could “pit the 70% of my city against the 30% of the city that has to have duplexes.” She worries about how the city, which is made up of mostly single-family neighborhoods, would choose which areas to upzone.

The amendment encourages the rezoning to allow multiplexes to be developed along transit corridors.

Support for a statewide housing assessment

Amy Phillips, the mayor of Avon in Eagle County, said she wants to see a statewide housing needs assessment completed before overarching state mandates are considered. Many mayors also said they would like to see an assessment before larger legislation. That’s essentially what Republican Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer suggested a rejected amendment on Tuesday.

Phillips said that amendment would have addressed a lot of her concerns, as well as what she has heard from other ski towns in the state.

“The housing needs assessment needs to be the first step. How can you overlay legislation when you don’t even know what you need?” she said. “The cart is planted firmly in front of the horse right now. It needs to be a bottom-up approach with communities providing valuable input that can then be analyzed and structured into a statewide housing needs plan.”

Under the bill, cities would need to analyze their housing stock and create plans every five years to address shortages.

“In my opinion, there’s no place for this bill at all. The only thing the state should be doing is convening a housing study,” Piko said.

Desire for more city exemptions

Another major amendment to the bill shifted zoning requirements for rural resort job centers. They wouldn’t be required to allow multi-family housing or accessory dwelling units like Front Range cities, but they would need to pick from a list of affordability strategies.

“I’m glad they did that,” said Breckenridge Mayor Eric Mamula. “I still have concerns about the legislation as drafted and I’m hoping for some more amendments, in particular around the affordability pieces and around (the Department of Local Affairs) role.”

Mamula said that increased density without affordability guardrails, so that new units would go to workers and not people seeking vacation homes, could be “catastrophic” for cities like Breckenridge.

“I do value that (Polis) has decided that this is an important thing for the state. Housing is a critical need in the state. Where we get a little sideways … is that the one-size fits all approach just doesn’t work,” Mamula said.

Broomfield Mayor Guyleen Castriotta said she would like to see an amendment similar to that carve-out for rural resort towns for so-called “housing-forward communities” that are already working towards increasing affordable housing stock. A drafted amendment shared with Colorado Newsline would add a new category of municipality that meets or exceeds the bill’s housing requirements.

Housing-forward communities would need to have a housing unit growth rate equal to or greater than the statewide rate, have two-thirds of their new residential permits over three years be for middle housing and have a certain number of affordability measures in place, among other characteristics.

“We’re asking for that same approach (as the rural resort job center amendment) to incentivize and support communities, as opposed to using the hammer,” Castriotta said. She called the stake-holding process before the bill was introduced disingenuous and exclusionary of local governments.

“If there are bad actors who aren’t doing enough, go after them,” she said. “But what (they’re) doing to communities like Broomfield, who have been housing-forward for years, is disincentivizing and won’t make things happen quicker.”

Mayors are also concerned about water availability. Under an amendment, local governments would need to notify the state of their need for an extension or exemption from some requirements if they have water limitations. Phillips said that helps.

She questions, however, what could happen if more water gets diverted to supply increased Front Range development.

“It could end up harming those of us in the high country,” she said.

Other leaders agree that the bill needs to go further on that water concern.

“The legislation also doesn’t do nearly enough to address water availability. In Thornton, we have developments for affordable and attainable housing that we can’t let move forward because we don’t have the water to provide these developments,” Thornton Mayor Jan Kulmann wrote in an email.

The current amended version of SB-213 will likely not be the final product, as sponsor Senate Majority Leader Dominick Moreno and other legislators have promised more changes if and when it makes it to the Senate floor. It was scheduled to be considered by the Senate Appropriations Committee Friday but was delayed.

The leader of the opposition of the bill, Colorado Municipal League Executive Director Kevin Bommer, is unhappy with the amended version. The organization worked with Kirkmeyer on her amendment.

“I’m hoping that proponents will come to their senses and realize that if they actually want to help affect the pace of development of affordable housing, we’re better working together than in an adversarial way. So far, no one’s listening,” he said. “The clock is ticking to get it right. If they can’t, a dead bill is better than a flawed bill.”

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Broomfield Mayor Gives State of the City Address at Annual Chamber Meeting

Broomfield Mayor Guyleen Castriotta presents her state of the city address during the Thursday, Feb. 2 Broomfield Area Chamber annual meeting at Roots. 

With this continuing growth, Castriotta highlighted some of the city’s main focuses from the past year that will continue into 2023, such as income-aligned housing, economic vitality, sustainability, public health, and diversity, equity, access and inclusion.

2022 saw the launch of the Broomfield Housing Alliance, which Castriotta said is “already successful” by providing $3 million in startup and project funding. The Crosswinds and Northwest Apartments housing developments received critical gap financing of $2.3 million, which will provide affordable and safe housing for nearly 200 families or as many as 400 employees for Broomfield businesses.

Enhance Broomfield, an economic vitality program, was awarded $325,000 in addition to the approximately $1.5 million in private funding last year that was used to assist businesses and organizations in their growth.

“​​These awards will create more than 25 direct jobs, and lead to increased sales and economic opportunity,” Castriotta said. “As an example, we are providing funds to grow child care opportunities – which improves family life and increases employment choices for parents.”

In the sustainability focus, the city has created a Solar Co-op with Solar United Neighbors to push residents to move to solar energy in the coming year. The city is also considering a Universal Collection Initiative “as a way to help further our aggressive waste diversion goals,” Castriotta said. She urged residents to visit the Broomfield Voice page on Universal Collection to provide comments and learn more.

The city is also launching a new resident-led Board of Health, which will begin working with the Public Health Director and department this spring. The city will also be tackling the opioid epidemic this year with the Broomfield Opioids Response Plan providing $201,000 to implement new strategies.

Castriotta highlighted three key points for looking ahead in the city and county.

“As we look ahead, we all know how critical financial sustainability and resiliency are, and that is what the City and County of Broomfield strive for as well,” Castriotta said. “It means maintaining our excellent bond rating, diversifying our tax base, and maintaining and building our reserve balance. As we talked about earlier, we have seen our population double over the last 10 years, but our infrastructure to support that community has not kept up. So, shoring up Broomfield’s infrastructure is a priority as well.”

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