Colorado has new plan to make it easier for developers to build affordable housing

The State of Colorado now has a new plan to make it easier to build affordable housing in Colorado. The "common application" will speed up the creation of affordable homes by cutting through red tape, which will eliminate redundant requirements for development, according to supporters.

The state held a press conference at the Mosaic Community Campus in Denver Monday morning. Gov. Jared Polis, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and housing specialists were all in agreement; building affordable housing is too complicated. 

These experts say there are too many unnecessary steps when it comes to building affordable housing. This includes going to too many banks and repeating the loan process at each one. This leads to way too many repetitive background checks, which pushes back the timeline. 

This single application speeds up the construction timeline by four months and saves $20,000 per unit on average. The state said the approval of Prop. 123 has already helped with the creation of 11,000 homes. Now with this single application, they believe they can build at least 7,000 homes annually. They say everyone deserves a stable, safe, and affordable place to call home.

The state says all of this will create a one-stop shop for developers, skipping steps that are no longer needed, in hopes of streamlining the process for building affordable homes.