The Boulder City Council on Thursday, Jan. 18, officially repealed the city’s housing growth cap. The policy was aimed at slowing new developments but has proven inconsequential for decades.
The decision comes in the wake of a 2023 state law prohibiting cities like Boulder from enforcing “anti-growth” laws that impede housing supply. Repealing Boulder’s decades-old ordinance was necessary to comply with state law.
The city’s growth cap was narrowly approved by voters in 1976, at a time when the city had also implemented land-use and zoning measures aimed at slowing growth in certain areas. The growth limit was named the “Danish Plan” after its leading advocate, Councilmember Paul Danish.
The latest iteration of the growth ordinance caps new home building permits at 1% per year. But the ordinance also exempts housing units in mixed-use areas (where a lot of recent development has taken place) and deed-restricted affordable housing from annual calculations, among other exemptions. This means the ordinance has not been limiting residential growth in the city for at least two decades, according to city officials.