Denver mayor presents six citywide goals for 2025, sets targets for housing, climate and safety

The mayor of Denver presented six citywide goals for 2025 and described how the administration aligned department budgets to those goals, emphasizing housing, climate action, public safety and family services.

The mayor said the administration reorganized the planning and budget sequence so citywide goals, departmental goals and budgets are aligned, and walked the council through targets for Vibrant Denver; Affordability; Safety; Homelessness; Climate; and Family-friendly initiatives.

Why it matters: Citywide goals are tied to budget planning and will guide program priorities and departmental work in 2025, affecting housing production, public-safety and climate investments across Denver neighborhoods.

Highlights of the mayor’s presentation

- Affordability: The administration set a near-term target of adding 3,000 affordable housing units “across income levels,” using a mix of new construction, acquisition and preservation strategies as well as rental supports, the mayor said. He also framed a longer-term aspirational gap of roughly 45,000 units that remains the city’s long-term focus.

- Homelessness: The mayor set an operational target to move 2,000 people from street homelessness into transitional housing and to achieve 2,000 exits into permanent housing from the transitional sector. The mayor and staff identified the Host program as the operational partner for reaching those outcomes.

- Safety: The mayor said the city will continue strategies to reduce shootings and violent crime and will increase a “full-continuum” approach to nonviolent crime — prevention, intervention and enforcement — citing prior reductions in shootings and homicides last year. Council members pressed for neighborhood-level data and raised concerns about retail theft and how sentencing differences between state law and local ordinances might affect residents.

- Climate and resilience: The goals include measures to cut carbon pollution and expand climate resilience: adding heat pumps, EV chargers and solar arrays targeted at nonprofits and small businesses (the mayor described an objective to add 2,000 such installations), planting 4,500 trees in 2025 and reducing water use by 20,000,000 gallons. The mayor also directed development of a citywide fire-resiliency plan, led by the fire chief.

- Vibrant Denver and downtown: The mayor asked the council to partner on a comprehensive plan to revitalize neighborhoods and downtown. He cited reopening Sixteenth Street, using Downtown Denver Development Authority funds to support public parks and converting commercial properties to residential as examples of priorities.

- Family-friendly investments: The city set targets to connect 5,000 more middle-school students to high-quality out-of-school programming and to expand employment pathways for young adults (summer jobs and 18–24 employment). The mayor said 2025 will be a planning year for an expanded citywide childcare effort led by the Office of Children’s Affairs.

Council response and specific concerns

Councilmember Parady welcomed the public-health framing for nonviolent crime but questioned whether the administration’s position would support retaining locally higher maximum sentences for low-level offenses. Parady asked: “it’s a like a public health oriented sort of full spectrum approach, right?” The mayor answered that the city seeks local authority to set sentences while pursuing non‑incarceration responses and other enforcement options; he also described retailers’ reports of pervasive retail theft and said the city is exploring enforcement and non‑incarceration alternatives such as restitution and restorative justice.

Councilmember Torres, Councilmember Cashman and others asked for more granular data and follow-up: neighborhood-level crime statistics, lists of delayed capital projects and clarification whether the homelessness targets represent new clients or repeat placements. Councilmember Cashman also noted an MOU under discussion between the Office of Children’s Affairs and UNICEF about Denver’s potential participation in a child-friendly cities process.

Several council members raised climate and resilience concerns specific to their districts: tree canopy deficits in West Denver, reliance on federal grants for neighborhood greening projects, and wildfire evacuation and evacuation-transportation planning for neighborhoods near the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. Councilmember Gilmore urged quick work on evacuation planning and transport contingencies for densely populated neighborhoods with adjacent open space and potential fire corridors.

Implementation and next steps

The mayor said departments will share subgoals and that council members would be invited to serve as liaisons on specific goals; the council president indicated she will contact members about assignments and coordinate with the mayor’s office to set up monthly meetings on goal teams.

Votes at a glance

- Motion to move into executive session pursuant to DRMC 2-3-4(a) sections 1, 2, 3 and 7 to discuss the city’s response to recent federal action and receive legal advice: motion made, seconded and approved by voice vote (no individual roll-call recorded in the transcript).