Older neighborhoods vs. affordable housing

For the past two years, a battle has been raging for control over the character and livability of older neighborhoods in cities throughout the Front Range of Colorado.

The older neighborhoods, most of them clustered around the downtown area of Front Range cities, have been ill-equipped to fight this battle. Some of them have organized volunteer homeowners’ associations that have been able to work to protect current zoning laws, yet many of the other neighborhoods are disorganized and barely perceive the dangers they face.

The dangers come from a national movement, increasingly present in Colorado, to densify the population in existing neighborhoods through such techniques as allowing additional housing units to be built in backyards and side yards.

Another densifying technique is to smo