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Housing Colorado briefs Boulder advisory board on key 2025 bills and budget risks
Summary
Brian Rossford of Housing Colorado reviewed major housing bills from the 2025 legislative session, highlighted budget pressures and pending legal challenges over state land‑use bills, and flagged several bills and funding tools that could affect Colorado housing programs.
Brian Rossford, executive director of Housing Colorado, told the Housing Advisory Board that housing remained a top statewide priority in the 2025 legislative session and reviewed a range of bills that the association tracked. He said the 2024 session's themes 'land use, local versus state control, and tax credits'continued to shape 2025 work and that the state budget is a central constraint on housing legislation.
"Housing affordability still rises to the top," Rossford said, quoting the governor's State of the State remarks. He described three budget realities shaping outcomes this year: a tighter revenue outlook, a legislature that cut many items to protect key services, and the practical effect that any bill with a fiscal note faced a steep uphill climb in appropriations committees.
Rossford walked the board through specific bills and outcomes. He said the algorithmic-rent-setting bill (House Bill 1004), aimed at restricting software that sets rents based on peer rents, passed the legislature but was vetoed by the governor; he added Colorado remains engaged in litigation against a company named RealPage. He identified HB1090 (deceptive pricing/disclosure of fees to renters) as requiring landlords to disclose all costs up front. He summarized smaller bills that limit work-arounds to anti-growth ballot measures (HB1093), a failed bill on administrative review for faith or education land (HB1169), and bills addressing tenant protections and vouchers.
Rossford also summarized policy changes with development and production implications: construction-defect legislation that created an opt-in remedy and warranty path for developers (a bill he described as an incremental step aimed at making condominium construction more feasible); Senate Bill 2, which directs the Department of Local Affairs to develop regional codes for modular construction to reduce per-municipality regulatory friction; and Senate Bill 6, which authorizes the state treasurer to invest in below-market bonds for affordable homeownership (an enabling step, Rossford said, but without a standing program yet).
He described Senate Bill 20, a receivership mechanism allowing local governments and the attorney general to place severely distressed rental properties into receivership for rehabilitation, and noted a separate bill (SB167) that initially proposed using treasurer-controlled funds and the permanent school fund for community benefits, including housing; those treasurer provisions were removed after opposition. He warned that some housing funding sources are at risk under special-session budget trade-offs and said advocates are preparing to protect housing gap funding such as the vendor fee and other gap resources.
Rossford said Housing Colorado provides a public bill tracker (housingcolorado.org) for anyone who wants to monitor the bills and positions. He encouraged local advocates to follow and prepare for potential special-session budget fights, and noted growing federal advocacy around vouchers and rental assistance to complement state-level production incentives.
Ending
Board members asked follow-up questions about modular timelines, whether insurance markets would return for construction-defect risk, and possible uses of state-controlled investment funds. Rossford said some disputes over last year's land-use bills will likely reach the Colorado Supreme Court and urged local stakeholders to monitor the budget and voucher debates closely.
