Polis and Democrats seize on private property rights with more government control

Mar 24, 2023

In his State of the State address this year, Gov. Polis was all about protecting private property rights.

“We have to break down government barriers, expand private property rights, and reduce regulations to actually construct more housing to provide housing options at a lower cost so that all Coloradans can thrive,” Polis said.

And by property rights, it turns out what Polis really meant is that renters should have more rights than the property owners, so evictions are going to be more difficult.

By reducing regulations, Polis meant that state government should regulate local zoning rules to stop building single-family homes to make way for more congested dwellings where people are living on top of each other in apartment buildings or crammed into dense townhome projects.

Polis is backing that legislation to start ordering cities around, which is sponsored by Democrat state Reps. Iman Jodeh of Aurora, Steven Woodrow of Denver, and state Sen. Dominick Moreno of Commerce City.

Colorado Public Radio reports:

The bill would not require cities to actually build those denser options. But it would open the door for developers to propose and construct them much more easily.

Neighborhoods in attractive markets could see a surge of denser construction — and local elected officials and neighborhood groups would lose much of their power to stop it.

That’s probably what he also meant when he pledged to “break down government barriers” … by creating new government barriers.

But back to private property rights, the Democrat-controlled legislature is doing a lousy job of it as well with this bill forcing property owners to give cities the right of first refusal if they want to sell multifamily properties so cities can convert to so-called affordable housing.

And we hate that term really, because affordable housing never seems to be much cheaper than regular housing for the working class.

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