> A developer could likely fit 3-4 nice cottage homes on that lot, sell them for $500-700k, and make a profit

Denver takes 264 days to approve "multi-family or industrial projects with a valuation in excess of $1.5 million, such as a new apartment or office building, large additions" [1]. Construction loans in Colorado cost "8% to 13%" [2]. For a project with $1.5mm up-front costs, from land purchases to permit fees and legal costs, that comes to $87 to 141 thousand per project.

This isn't as bad as San Francisco, where permiting delays alone add hundreds of thousands of dollars to housing costs. But in addition to upzoning, it's something to be considered, particularly since Denver seems to categorise practically all impactful residential development as "major commercial."

[1] https://www.denvergov.org/Government/Agencies-Departments-Of...

[2] https://www.clearhouselending.com/commercial-loans/colorado/...

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cucumber3732842 2 hours ago | parent [-]

>particularly since Denver seems to categorise practically all impactful residential development as "major commercial."

This isn't an accident. They know what they're doing.

Every municipality tries to do this to the extent they think they can get away with it because it's an end run around your property right. There's all sorts of residential exemptions and precedents and case law and courts and politicians tend not to be in a hurry to screw homeowners because there's tons of them.

By classifying you as commercial it gives them a) all sorts of capricious authority to micromanage the pettiest of details and/or force you to expend money with no recourse except "haha, sue us peasant".

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Analemma_ an hour ago | parent [-]

It's absolutely vital to homeowners that no new housing be built, to keep Undesirables from moving in, but they need to do it in a way which leaves no blood on their hands, so they can continue to have their In This House signs with no cognitive dissonance.

And this is how they get it: don't literally refuse housing, but make it economically impossible in practice. Then they can go "welp, nothing's getting built, I guess there's nothing we could've done", and as an added bonus they also get to say "looks like the free market can never fix our housing shortage!"

	▲	nextos an hour ago \| parent [-]
		This is happening in large parts of the EU as well. It's pretty mind blowing. Since the mid 2010s, the new build construction rate has slowed down to alarmingly low levels. A few years before that, there was an oversupply, yet they kept building. It's totally intentional. Unsurprisingly, affordability is so bad. In lots of major cities, a one-bed rental takes around 50% of a mid-career post-tax salary. You have become an indentured servant for whatever real estate fund owns your property. Lots of regulatory capture behind the scenes. Ironically, some parts of the UK, including Home Counties, are now much better than most EU, including Scandinavia, with lots of shared ownership and affordable housing schemes. It's really easy. Increasing the supply of homes, in particular first homes, and preventing predatory tactics to hoard supply.