Abundant Housing
Abundant Housing
strengthens Littleton
Having a stable home is the foundation for life. We want abundant housing of all types: social housing, market-rate homes, income-restricted homes, and everything in between. We all know the challenges that come with a shortfall of housing: ever-rising rents, too-expensive mortgages, people far away from their job, people living out of a car, homelessness. And a vast body of research indicates that adding housing does lower overall housing prices, and slows displacement at both the neighborhood and city-wide levels.
Littleton faces housing challenges
The City of Littleton conducted a housing study (2018) to learn what really matters most to our residents. The findings confirmed the challenges we face.
- Families continue to decline in Littleton – The Housing Study showed a decline in families (from 29% in 2010 to 24% in 2018)
- Single-unit homes are too expensive for families
- Rising housing costs continue to outpacing income growth
- Growth of our housing stock not keeping up with our population growth
Encouraging more housing here makes sense
There are many benefits to expanding housing in our community. When more people can find housing right here in Littleton, it means shorter travel distances for our teachers, our babysitters, our nurses, our street sweepers, and other community workers. It means greater economic diversity among our neighbors. It means reducing the pressure to push housing growth further out into rural communities.
How can we increase housing in Littleton?
First of all, we need to legalize housing. As of 2022, most types of homes are illegal on most parcels of land in Littleton. It’s simply illegal to build a duplex, triplex, cottage court, apartment, or row homes on most “residential” zoned lots because of restriction in our land use code (the ULUC). If we want more homes for our children, nieces, nephews, downsizing elders, disabled friends or lower wage colleagues, we must make more types of home legal to build in our city.
Second, we need to reduce costly parking mandates. A parking space or a garage is expensive, averaging $40,000 to build just one parking space. This makes homes even more expensive. Many people can not or do not drive cars, so we should not force the expense of a parking space on every home built in Littleton. Reducing costly parking mandates means more types of homes can be financially viable — for both builders and for buyers/renters.
Ways to get involved
with Vibrant Littleton's campaign
Come to our next gathering where you’ll meet other Littleton neighbors who want to see positive changes like this in our city.
Add yourself to our email list. You’ll stay informed of what’s happening and how to make an impact.
Drop us a line and let us know what you think. We love to hear the thoughts of our fellow neighbors!
Read more about 'Abundant Housing'
We're not making this stuff up!
The housing shortage is a result of harmful laws passed at all levels of government. Inclusive housing policies will help shrink the racial wealth gap, reduce displacement, reduce carbon emissions, and give more people access to jobs and high quality schools.”
– Yimby Action 2021
