DOLA SB24-174 Housing Action Plan Guidelines

A housing action plan for a Front Range suburb looks nothing like one for a ranching county on the Eastern Plains or a ski town at 9,000 feet. The Eastern Plains face declining populations and aging housing stock with little private investment. Front Range communities manage growth and rising land costs. Mountain resort towns contend with short-term rental conversions and seasonal labor. The Western Slope spans all three. SB24-174 required communities across Colorado to develop housing action plans, but the framework had to work across markets that share almost nothing in common — without losing the structure that makes a plan more than a wish list.

The framework had to work across markets that share almost nothing in common.

Western Spaces, with ECOnorthwest, developed the statewide HAP guidelines for the Department of Local Affairs, creating a framework that balances statutory requirements with local flexibility. The guidelines walk communities through goal-setting, data analysis, strategy selection, and implementation — structured enough to produce plans with measurable commitments, flexible enough to reflect the difference between a community managing growth and one managing decline.