"As the state's fourth-fastest growing community, having a variety of housing options within the city is critical to meeting our vision of a quality community for a lifetime," said Mayor Sean Ford, according to the Denver Business Journal. (Denver Post file)

Commerce City has become the latest metro-area city to give up waiting for the state legislature to address obstacles to condominium construction and move decisively on its own instead.

"As the state's fourth-fastest growing community, having a variety of housing options within the city is critical to meeting our vision of a quality community for a lifetime," said Mayor Sean Ford, according to the Denver Business Journal. "Commerce City has not approved a new condominium or multi-family project since 2008."

Permit us to repeat: Since 2008. Skeptics can talk all they like about the market for condos collapsing in the Great Recession and stricter credit requirements that were imposed on borrowers. All true. But this metro area has been a red-hot real-estate market for some time and yet condo projects are still few and far between. Something is wrong.

Lakewood led the way on unilateral action last year when it passed a local ordinance that tries to tamp down the litigious environment around construction defects. Lone Tree followed suit.

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock also has been deeply frustrated by the refusal of the legislature to pass a bill supported by the region's mayors.

Mayoral spokeswoman Amber Miller told us last week that when that bill died this year, the mayor said "he was going to get his legal team looking at what we could do at the local level." She added that the city attorney is now researching the issue... Read the Article