ENGLEWOOD — Amid a raging statewide debate over housing availability and affordability, a small town on Denver’s south side has taken the fight to a whole new level of disagreement: kick out the bums.
A group of citizens is targeting the impeachment of more than half of Englewood’s seven-member city council, citing the elected leaders’ support for “high-density housing projects that negatively impact adjacent neighborhoods,” according to petitions submitted to the city.
They also accuse the four council members – Mayor Othoniel Sierra, Joe Anderson, Chelsea Nunnenkamp and Cheryl Wink – of supporting “heavy use of accessory housing units throughout the city”. The end result of all that increased density in this suburb of 33,000, the critics argue, is “irreparable damage to established neighborhoods” in Englewood.
Englewood has demolished a condo and apartment building in recent years. After failing to approve permits for such housing types in 2018 and 2020, the city green-lighted 479-unit projects in 2021. As of last summer, it had approved another 231 units and was reviewing permits for an additional 912 apartments and condos.
“They’re trying to sell it to us on the basis of affordable housing,” said Kurt Suppes, a 40-year-old city resident and head of the Recall and Restore Englewood committee behind the eviction effort. “It just increases traffic, lowers the value of neighborhood homes, and doesn’t suit the neighborhoods.”
Sierra, the mayor, understands why long-time residents protect their neighborhood the way they are, but he’s bewildered why there’s such fervor against a certain part of town. The city’s elected leaders, he said, have simply been discussing “how to increase housing supply as a result of the affordability crisis in Englewood and the region.”
“Apparently, the recall petitioners felt that just having the discussions was reason enough for a recall,” he said.
In fact, the City Council decided two months ago to introduce a proposal to allow duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes in areas of the city designated for single-family housing. But that hasn’t stopped the recall, the mayor said.
“If having discussions about key issues facing the entire metropolitan area could lead to a recall, it could influence future councils to discuss options to address affordable housing or another pressing issue,” Sierra said.
The citizens’ group has until July 6 to collect signatures for the recall requests against the mayor and three council members, who they say have been the most proactive on the density issue in the council. A recall election should be held within 60 to 120 days after the petitions are deemed sufficient by the city clerk.
Last week, the petition against Nunnenkamp was determined by Englewood’s clerk as ripe for a spot on an election ballot. The 34-year-old councilor said she is the only person in the borough to have bought a home in Englewood in the past decade, having experienced first-hand how difficult it is for first-time homebuyers trying to negotiate a deal. metropolitan housing market where the median house price shot from $231,400 in 2011 to over $600,000 10 years later.
“Do we want to embrace thoughtful and incremental change that unlocks opportunity for all of our residents while preserving what we love most about Englewood?” she said. “Or do we want to resist any change in favor of the status quo?”
The struggle for density in Englewood is a microcosm of the many debates that have sprung up in the state in recent years as elected officials grapple with how to deal with Colorado’s housing crisis. The Housing affordability project in Colorado calculated that housing construction declined from an average of 48,000 per year in the decade prior to 2007 to about 26,500 per year in subsequent years, “even as employment and net migration continued to grow”.
“That’s at least 21,000 homes a year that haven’t been built,” the report said.
During the 2023 legislature, lawmakers considered more than two dozen measures directly related to housing. While many of those bills passed, several major ones did not, including one that dealt with evictions for just causes and another that would have enacted sweeping land-use reforms statewide with an emphasis on building denser communities.
According to a Englewood housing assessment report done last year by Root Policy Research, 46% of the city’s housing stock is multifamily, while 53% is single family. That compares to a 57% single-family home breakdown in Arapahoe County and a 59% share of such homes in metro Denver as a whole.
“The median market value of Englewood homes has tripled since 2000, with sharp gains in just the last 10 years,” the report states, noting that median home prices in the city reached about $600,000 last year.
For Nunnenkamp, those price escalations mean Englewood should at least consider other ways to house people, including increasing urban density.
“It’s important to me that we represent all voters across the housing spectrum, including renters, old homeowners, new residents, homebuyers and those who are out of housing,” she said.
But at what cost, Suppes asks.
“It seems like the city council doesn’t care what homeowners and renters think,” he said. “They’re following their agenda, and the agenda they’re pursuing is greater density in the city.”
Resistance to densification is nothing new in the metro area. Fifteen years ago, neighbors in Denver’s Washington Park neighborhood objected to the construction of duplexes, triplexes, and townhomes. And nearly four years ago, Lakewood voters approved a cap on new housing construction in the city, which some critics believe has hampered the city’s ability to attract multifamily projects, especially around transit stations.
![A shuttered Sam's Automotive at W. Oxford Ave and S. Navajo St. in Englewood with a new apartment complex behind it on June 16, 2023. (Photo by Andy Cross/JS)](https://i0.wp.com/www.denverpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/TDP-L-SAMS-AUTOMOTIVE_JAC4230.jpg?fit=620%2C9999px&ssl=1)
Gary Kozacek, who has lived in Englewood for more than seven decades and served on the city council in the 1980s, is leading a separate citizens’ petition seeking the city’s April approval of a proposed project of 395 apartments and townhomes on the vacant Sam’s Automotive site on West Oxford Avenue.
His petition earlier this month was considered sufficient by the municipality to return to council for a reconsideration of their vote or to conduct a special election ballot for voters to decide, though a protest filed last week by developer Embrey Partners is due to be heard on Friday.
“It’s our immediate neighbor and I’ve lived in the area for 71 years,” Kozacek said. “The referendum process allows us as citizens to make our voices heard.”
His petition, he said, has more to do with the expected impacts of the project, such as traffic, noise, air quality and safety concerns, than purely density. But the problems are interrelated, Suppes said.
“They want all these changes,” Suppes said of the city government. “But they don’t want to consider the consequences.”