DOLA SB24-174 Housing Needs Assessment Guidelines
Technical guidelines and methodology standards for housing needs assessments under SB24-174, establishing a statewide framework for HNA development.
- Department of Local Affairs
- Colorado (statewide)
- HNA Guidelines Document, Compliance Checklist, Displacement Risk Methodology, Rural Resort Petition Guidance
When Colorado passed SB24-174, every community in the state needed to conduct a housing needs assessment — many for the first time, and many without the staff or data to do it. A Front Range suburb with Census tracts of 50,000 people and a rural mountain county of 800 face different housing pressures, have different data available, and need different analytical approaches. A single template wouldn’t work.
Five firms that typically compete for the same contracts pooled decades of regional expertise.
The collaboration itself was unusual. Western Spaces, WSW Consulting, Economic and Planning Systems, Root Policy Research, and Urban Rural Continuum developed the statewide HNA guidelines for the Department of Local Affairs. This was a deliberate choice, not a standard subcontracting arrangement. The guidelines established methods for demographic analysis, economic conditions, housing markets, displacement risk, and water supply — with specific guidance for rural resort communities and places where standard data sources fall short. The framework is now the reference standard for housing needs assessments across Colorado.