‍Abby Newsham 00:18

Hey everyone, thanks for listening to another episode of Upzoned, the show where we take a big story from the news each week that touches the Strong Towns conversation, and we upzone it. We talk about it in depth. Today, I am joined by my friend Norm Van Eeden Petersman with Strong Towns. Hey, Norm, how's it going?

Norm Van Eeden Petersman 00:40

Hey, it's good. It's good to be back in the saddle. Thanks, Abby.

Abby Newsham 00:42

You're totally -- you're becoming a regular on Upzoned.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman 00:45

Yeah, better not let that become a pattern.

Abby Newsham 00:48

No, you're awesome. Well, today we are covering an article that you shared with me that is based in Denver. So this was published by the Denver Post entitled "Two Denver Suburbs Take Different Paths as Residents Face Housing Crunch: We Can Manage It, but Just Barely." So the two suburbs that they're talking about are Lakewood and Littleton, and these have become case studies in how communities are responding to Colorado's affordability crisis. They both face rising home prices and borrowing costs that are pricing out younger families and lower-income residents. Yet their paths diverge sharply. Lakewood is embracing reform. City leaders spent the summer overhauling zoning and land use rules to allow for a greater mix of housing types and more density, aiming to close the gap projected at 5,800 new homes over the next decade. The mayor frames the effort as a response to overwhelming demand from teachers, first-time home buyers and young families unable to find affordable options, and analysts point to a mismatch between demand and supply. Nearly three-quarters of Lakewood households have one or two people, but new single-family homes average 2,600 square feet and sell for more than $1.1 million. Littleton, by contrast, has been pushing back on change after public outcry over pro-density proposals. Earlier this year, the residents have launched Measure 3, a ballot initiative that would ban basically all other housing types other than single-family homes across most of the city. Supporters say new development hasn't improved affordability, pointing to luxury triplexes selling for nearly $1 million as proof that density drives gentrification, not relief. And opponents warn that the measure could violate state housing laws that were passed in 2024 to promote density, risking loss of state funding. And the debate has drawn in state and regional leaders who view this as really emblematic of Colorado's growing tension between local control, housing needs and state mandates. So this clash in Lakewood and Littleton, I think, reflects a larger struggle that has been -- I mean, I see it unfolding in many US suburbs across the country. So while it's like a perfect case study for Colorado, I think it's really a common struggle where the pressure to grow is meeting this instinct to preserve community and identity and how people see their community.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman 03:53

Yeah, it really stands out to me that this is -- it's correct for Strong Towns to describe this as the continuation of an experiment. And the question is, who gets to decide what we are going to persist in, in terms of allowing the experiment to continue? So the suburban experiment is one that says we can build entire neighborhoods all at once to a finished state, and that is what we put on the promotional brochure, and that's what we make as a commitment to everyone, so that the product is a complete neighborhood, rather than recognizing neighborhoods are always supposed to be ecosystems where change is accepted and allowed to occur. And if you take what I like to refer to as the three hallmarks of the suburban experiment, it's first off exclusion by class or status, and read through even the news articles and some of the language around there, and it's very plain that is a goal to continue that exclusion by class or status in Littleton as part of the stated goals of saying, "Let's keep up property values. Let's continue to prop up the type of neighborhood that we want to see that looks a lot like what we want for our lives," and it recognizes we just don't want others to continue to be part of these neighborhoods. And then the second element is resistance to change, and the third is assumption of auto dependency. So parking and traffic doesn't actually factor much in the articles, but I'm sure it's part of the discussion as well. And what's so interesting is in the midst of this natural experiment, we will actually have two laboratories in Lakewood and Littleton of two different approaches to addressing this. And certainly from a Strong Towns perspective, Lakewood has taken steps to say, "What if we allowed that next increment to emerge?" And I think that's something that's so powerful here.

Abby Newsham 05:31

What I think is really interesting is the opposite arguments that you hear now against housing variety, whether it's duplexes or apartments, whatever. I feel like kind of the older argument was, "Well, if you build apartments anywhere near my neighborhood, it's going to hurt property values, and it's going to make the neighborhood decline." In many places, we're now seeing this new argument against housing variety that says, "Actually, no, it doesn't hurt my property values, but instead it gentrifies us out of our neighborhoods." And actually, sometimes I hear it both ways. I hear both opposite arguments, sometimes from the same person. So it's really interesting that you're now seeing this speculation that anything different, anything new, both lowers property values and also gentrifies neighborhoods. So a lot of these are coming from emotions, feelings about things, really resistance to change and kind of a grasping for any argument, whether it's backed up by data or not, to basically say we want this to be built to a finished state and to never change. But as you pointed out, the built environment does change over time. I mean, you really can't stop the world from changing. And in places like Littleton, it'll be interesting to see what actually happens if they try to kind of freeze everything in place forever.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman 07:18

Yeah, especially because their ordinance, their Measure 3 amendment, says that the land use code would be frozen, essentially to the state that it was in January 1, 2025, which even includes all the regulations around sheds, and whether or not how many chickens you can have. Every last detail is actually going to be set in stone. And the way the proposal says that can only be changed with a charter amendment. I would love to hear from you, Abby, how good are our current land use bylaws that we would be willing to submit them to that test?

Abby Newsham 07:52

I mean, to freeze your entire development code in static like that is a really, really bad idea. This is a situation where they're taking drastic measures to address the issue of housing, but there is a lot that happens in codes. I know in code discussions and code modernization, there's a lot of emphasis on housing because it's kind of the hot topic of the day, and it's the thing that I think is most emotional for people and most political. But there's so many other things that go into modernizing a code way beyond housing. I mean, there's process things, there's new uses that haven't been contemplated before, that need to be addressed. There's different ways of navigating civil infrastructure and site work that can create flexibility and better ways of just designing a site. So if they're trying to freeze their code, that is going to hurt them in the long run, in a really bad way.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman 09:04

Yeah, and we see this with other efforts to freeze things as they are. So if I take, for example, that I was not permitted to buy another article of clothing in my closet, my wife would start to complain that it was looking pretty dated. And we do these strange things in our cities, where sometimes when we think of gentrification and displacement, if an entire neighborhood is allowed to just become run down, that makes it then prime for the wrecking ball to come through and sort of knock everything out. But in the Strong Towns vision, part of what these types of code amendments are so necessary to allow for is that there's gradual redevelopment of some of the sites. And think of it as your closet, the equivalent of a neighborhood. I've got items still from when I was in high school, and I've got stuff that I bought just a little bit ago. And the reality is, nothing is so drastic. Nothing really surprises me. I can -- individual users making use of each item, but when it comes time for some of them to be updated, that's not a threat to the whole system. It's not so drastic. And that is -- I appreciate you pointing out the irony that it is simultaneously accused of devaluing property while also driving up property values. And there has to be a reckoning with those things. The facts don't lie on those fronts. And I think that this is one of those needs that are there. There was an interesting quote in the article by a woman named Regina who said, "Why are local governments being forced to fix what is a state issue in terms of meeting housing targets and trying to provide housing for people within the broader region?" And the answer is, because it's actually, I mean, it is a state issue in the sense that the state is impacted by it, but is truly a local issue. And I don't think you have to throw a stone very far to find people that are deeply impacted by the scarcity of available housing that meets their needs and their housing budget as well.

Abby Newsham 10:55

Cities are part of states. That's -- I mean, it's a state issue if you measure it at a state level, but cities are part of states. That's why those things are connected. I thought that was an interesting quote from the article.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman 11:13

And it's interesting too that in Littleton in particular, they said the proposal is, "Please, no more duplexes, no more triplexes, none of that." No higher level of gradual introduction of new homes, but they said backyard cottages or ADUs, that's still allowed. So that was in the code as of January 1. And so there is this recognition, "Well, we can meet the need with backyard cottages," and I'm sympathetic to that, or at least, I'm happy that that baby didn't get thrown out with the bathwater. But there is still this idea that if anybody does want to make a redevelopment application, they can always go through a process of applying for variances. But why is that a barrier to doing small-scale development? If the thing that you need to have happen is applying for variances. You want to share just a little bit of what is that tale of struggle or trial like for people when they have to go through the variance process?

Abby Newsham 12:10

Well, the variance process, I can't speak to Colorado state law, but I mean, typically, a variance process is reserved for specific needs. I mean, if you have an unusually sized lot or -- I mean it's a variance is not the same as a process for asking for a basic exception because I want it. Typically, there's rules that are outlined by the state that are tied to how you would grant variances so they can be difficult to actually receive, depending on where you're at, and they also, I mean, it's just another step in the process that could add cost, could add time. All of the additional costs that go into process get eventually passed down to the buyers or renters of the housing. And so I think when we're making the complaint that we want more affordable housing, that housing has become too expensive, but then we're imposing these processes that -- you have to hire people to go to the city council meeting and to negotiate with staff. I mean, it all costs money. None of that happens for free. All of that is getting baked into the cost of housing. And so it's a little disingenuous for us to say, "Well, we want housing to be more affordable, but we're going to make it more complex and burdensome to actually build housing because we want so much control over the outcome, or we want to negotiate and politicize everything about the design of your housing or what you're doing." I mean, all of that costs money. So I think that in these housing discussions, there's a lot of wanting to have your cake and eat it too. We want to have a lot of control over what gets built in our communities. And I can certainly -- I live in a community too. I live in a neighborhood. I own a house. I understand there can be knee-jerk reactions to like, you see a building proposal and you're like, "I think that's kind of ugly." But the question is, "Well, should I be the one that has the right to go and redesign it for them?" No. I think the answer is no. I don't have the right to go and redesign it. Maybe I should become an incremental developer and be the change I want to see in the world, or find other ways to be the change we want to see in the world. But I think in reality, we as a society are having a really hard time navigating the fact that we don't have as much control in the world as we would like to. And I think a lot of people feel a lack of control in the world, and it plays out in local land use politics.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman 15:07

Yeah, and when I give housing talks, people will be nodding vigorously at one or both of the things that we'll say, which is, "No neighborhood should be subject to radical change," and you have half the room already nodding, and then you say, "And no neighborhood should be exempt from change." And the other half nods. And then a good section of people are there in the middle. And I hear the language of like, "We don't want blanket density," as if that was suddenly that everybody is evicted from their homes, and large towers are put up. And reality is, we're talking granular. We're talking gradual. Many of these triplexes would only exist in somebody's imagination for quite a while before they ever came to fruition. And so the City of Vancouver, for example, allowed laneway houses in a targeted area, and they did a study to identify how quickly was the turnaround to the point where every one of those lots had a laneway house? Well, we haven't gotten there, and I think it's been 15 years now. In fact, there's not even a large concentration of laneway homes, even though that was a pilot area where it was first allowed. And so it's a gradual sort of opening up of these things. But I would definitely say I would recommend going through a project with good designers in your community. If you've seen people in your community that have built good stuff, ask, "Can we walk with you through what it would look like if you redeveloped, say, a single structure to add on the ability to turn it into a duplex?" And they would say, "Well, I'm already frustrated because the front setback is so deep that I actually can't put on something like a porch. Now, because I don't have a porch, I can't hide that there's -- I mean, hide, whether or not we need to, sometimes we want to hide that there's two entrances. In my city, you can't have a primary entrance for both units and then a secondary door that goes into the secondary unit. That's considered a lockout unit, and that's not allowed in my city. So that means you have to do the shame sort of walk on the back of the property in order to get to the second unit. All of these dumb stuff that -- I said recently on a LinkedIn post, the main thing that we need for a lot of our zoning bylaws is the delete key, and that would help us a long ways in being able to work with some of these more innovative designers and go with that and see that type of opportunities to say, "Let's dial in. What do we want to see? All right, let's actually look at what is it that prevents that from happening and allow those things to happen." So things even like roof height. Roof height has a factor on building design. So if there is something that persistently is blocking a feature that you think would be useful with a gabled roof, or things like that, make sure that you've done the small things to allow for that to happen. I see it in reverse, where I see a lot of pancake buildings, where they are allowed to go up a couple of stories, then they have to set way back. And the idea is we need to protect shade, but we get really odd sort of angular, blocky buildings without any of the features of traditional development. And the result is, do we actually need those setbacks in the higher stages to shield the street from shade when we live in a state where much of what we need in the summer and often in the wintertime too, is shade -- is being protected from the elements to a certain extent. And then the last thing I would say too, is to do this at the city level. It will be a fascinating question in the exercise of democracy if it passes, because that is a massive imposition on everybody that lives in the city with the idea that we all have voted for it, when we know that only a fraction of the population will have voted for it, whereas each of these property owners could sign a deed declaration on their property and assign it to title, and they could have the best block party that was like, "Hey, we're having a deed signing ceremony." And neighbors 12, 36, 10 and 14 could all sign it together. And if they didn't persuade their next-door neighbor that they would want that. And we've heard the stories of people who are like, "I liked it in concept, until they told me that if I resold it, nobody would buy it at the rates that currently it's worth." Talk about a drain on what the potential property value is, and people that balked and said, "Even if my kids were to buy it, they would not be allowed to put up a duplex on our family property. Maybe I don't sign this thing." That feels like the local level of control actually sort of having a responsible role to play here. If you say we want to persistently block the next increment of development from emerging, so I say have deed signing parties.

Abby Newsham 19:30

Yeah, do it through deed. Yeah. I think that's a brilliant point. And honestly, that would be in the better interest of the city overall, because you're getting specific about the issue that they're trying to address, which is to not allow anything but a single-family house on the lots. It would require individuals to actually think about what they're signing and make that decision. I would wonder how many people would sign it versus just voting for something, because it involves paperwork, and actually looking at your deed and everything. And also it would be in the best interest of the city, because it wouldn't freeze everything else in place. I mean, I think a lot of people are -- if it's freezing their entire code, people are going to be kicking themselves down the road when something doesn't make sense and they're like, "Wow, we really need to change this." And they can't change it because they've locked themselves in place because of a housing issue. Yeah, that's unfortunate.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman 20:41

And the longer-term implications, and the idea that in the description, I mean, we're leaving out Lakewood, partly because we're excited about what Lakewood is doing. They're trying to address these things. And I'm excited that that is happening. And the opportunity to say, in the long term, you'd be able to see the results of the experiment. If Lakewood has greater prosperity, greater sort of diversity within their neighborhoods, in terms of people living in homes that suit them, there's better options for seniors, you would say that was a better approach. The question is, right now, the people of Littleton do need to decide which path are you willing to take? And we're, I would say, raising a Strong Towns warning flag, which just says, be really careful. And so Chuck actually did -- Andrea Peters is a realtor and a council member in Littleton who hosted a conversation with Chuck Marohn, a virtual event. And so that recording is available. So if you're in Littleton and you're interested, they did a Q&A time afterwards, there's some more material on this. But what I would also add is that this is an opportunity to just say, one of the barriers that we will face is when we specify what level of development in a neighborhood we want things to go to. I'm concerned for my province, where we've said up to four units, up to four homes on a lot. Well, what is it that makes us stop at four? And they've said, "Well, if it's near transit, it has to be more than six stories." And so we get into all of those numbers. And this is -- there's an elegance in the Strong Towns imposition of just a simple standard: you're allowed to build to the next increment of development by right, sort of once a lifespan. You shouldn't build up a paper building just to knock it down, and then build higher. And we always say, if you want to go through the rigmarole of going through the whole extended variance process and try to skip increments, go for it, but there is this kind of natural recognition. "Oh, I could probably handle the next increment." But then the question is, in Littleton, what if you say the next increment for your single detached house is to have a backyard cottage, and then you're capped? Now you're just inviting future controversy -- future, if you're over the question of whether or not somebody wanting to do just a little bit more is actually suitable. And I would say, let them, but let them within restraints. And I think that's something that we're encouraging more places to work with.

Abby Newsham 22:58

Well, and it's short-sighted in the sense of understanding that demographics change, and right now, I think that's a big issue with what we are grappling with as a society across many, many suburbs and cities, is that we have built cities that are not attuned to current demographics. We've built housing portfolios that do not match the buyers and the household types in the socio-demographics. And in a lot of higher-end suburbs, I think a lot of people still have this -- I think an expectation that things will be what they were when they bought their house, and that society will continue to reflect the same socio-demographic makeup. And I think there's also, I think it's also deeply psychological in terms of how people see themselves in more exclusive communities, in the sense that being in this place is part of their kind of personal hero story of how they worked really hard and made it. And to allow anyone to come in that they perceive did not -- they're not working as hard, or they're not at their level -- that there's this sense of like it cheapens their own hero story for themselves, rather than being additive to their story. So I feel like there's this very deeply personal, held story about themselves and each one of us that we hold that is so tied to the place that we live, and that's a lot of these things are coming out of that, and this perspective of who lives in my community, and how does that impact how I see myself?

Norm Van Eeden Petersman 25:05

Yeah, and doesn't it feel too that a pretty small number of people may have the potential to really significantly impact the city for a long, long, long time, and are you comfortable with that much power? And yes, it will have been done democratically, but it will be done with, again, limited participation at the ballot box, which I understand is a feature, not a bug, in many instances. We don't need everybody be riled up and voting, but these are lasting things that are going to have lasting consequences. And so one of the things that stands out to me is the energy that comes from a Strong Towns local conversation that is united with a positive vision of what they want to see. And I understand there's real fears of losing a neighborhood feel here, worries about the risk of big developments just speeding up and sort of gobbling up more of the neighborhood. There's almost that sense that we are now what farmland used to be -- the next sitting duck, just waiting for development to gobble up the things that we value. And the truth is, no, this is allowing for the types of small-scale development that doesn't attract the big-scale developers. Nobody got time for that, says the CEO entrenched in their million-dollar office. They are much more focused on, "Where's our next big land play, where's our next big conversion opportunity?" And so this is that distrust, I think, partly through neglect of there being opportunities for this to occur previously. If I knew that routinely I was seeing small projects go up, as I'm starting to see in my neighborhood, and it's not changing that much, I would have a lot more confidence that the next one will be all right, too. And so people are grappling with this. But I love the idea too that Erin Kronberg has been pointing out, we have to think, "How many people do we have per infrastructure mile?" If you think of your infrastructure miles that are necessary to service your neighborhoods, there's a simple calculation -- the number of people per infrastructure mile helps, and we are not in a position where we're saying so, therefore I maximize that. Because I think, as Steve Mouzon said, then we would all live in -- or no, as Andrew one, he said, we would just live in a single tower and then have amazing parks all around it, and then workplaces at some distance from it. That is, clearly there's a median that we find in that space, but the fact that so much of our space is devoted to this, and when people in one of the articles, they say, "We just don't want to be like Denver," they're envisioning downtown Denver, but it's not going to be like that. It's not going to be in that style, or they're thinking of all of the highway-oriented development that's popping up -- the five-over-ones that are right next to the highway, right next to the big box power centers. And again, those are the types of projects that don't actually fit in these types of residential neighborhoods. They might go at the corner on one of the corner lots. You might get 4, 5, 6, maybe, but you wouldn't be seeing that in the existing neighborhoods. And so, yeah, I feel like this is something where, if we say, "How do we allow our cities to be less fragile?" we say, "We allow this type of incremental sort of adaptation as you develop," addressing that opportunity then to add just a few more households and a few more taxpayers to use their private wealth in order to subsidize part of the public realm that not only benefits them, but benefits even more people within the community.

Abby Newsham 28:29

Well, I think your point about more incremental density, and building to the next increment of development also aligns with the infrastructure conversation, because in this article they mentioned the water sanitation district has concerns about "densification of housing stock." And of course, if you're building big five-over-ones and doing substantial change to a block, you do need to upsize resources. You do need to dig into the street and make improvements to your infrastructure systems. That can happen with some infill too. But you can plan more strategically if you have an understanding of what that next increment of development looks like, and you can kind of upsize based on that. So I think that that also brings in alignment with our investments in infrastructure, our use of existing infrastructure systems and using it productively. Because, truth be told, we have a lot of neighborhoods where the infrastructure to support these places will never be paid by the property taxes. We have lower residential property taxes for a reason. We subsidize lower-density development, because it's something that, as a society, we've chosen to subsidize. But we need to do other things in order to support that. So we can't go on forever and ever running in the red.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman 30:08

Yeah, yeah. I want to ask one quick question about limiting new home sizes in Lakewood to 5,000 square feet or less. Give thoughts on that and what goals that serves.

Abby Newsham 30:20

Yeah, it's interesting to limit to 5,000 square feet or less. I think it's better than having minimums. Honestly, I'd be curious what the story is behind that. I have a feeling there's probably a broader conversation where that need, that number came from, or even having that standard put in. I am usually anti regulating housing sizes at all -- floor plans, housing sizes, anything like that, number of bedrooms -- because it doesn't allow things to change, and it doesn't allow people to build or be attuned to what people need. So putting that in a code, I think it's not usually a good idea, but the fact that they have a maximum makes me curious about what conversation led to putting that standard in.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman 31:25

I mean, it certainly does. It seems likely that anything over 5,000 square feet is going to not be affordable. So if we have housing land set aside in our community, and certainly the practice of buying up two lots with significant capital outlay for that, knocking down whichever homes there are there, and then putting up -- and especially on larger-size lots, and then you knock down a couple of them, and then you build a spacious home on that. That can work if the assessments were to keep up. But as Joe Minicozzi has pointed out, oftentimes, those extra-large home sites don't actually pay their fair share in property taxes because they are a set -- he wrote a great article for us called "Mansion Blight," about the cases in North Carolina where these leafy mansion districts paid a paltry amount of property tax on a per-acre basis compared to more normal neighborhoods, you could say. And so it is interesting, my city actually has, we call that a monster homes bylaw that limits the amount of square footage that any single home can have, and it definitely does leave open then the door for more homes to be built. The one challenge that we've always had and will continue to have is that we make it the easiest. There's no friction to knock down a home and build a large home on that plate. We've just now said, it can't be more than 5,000 square feet. But that's not in the range, but the irony, or it's not ironic, but if anybody's a hockey fan, you'll know the name Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who plays at the Edmonton Oilers. He was building a home. I think I can share this. He was building a home in Burnaby, and they had their designs. They brought it to the city. They were ready to go. And then the city said, "Oh, you're missing something." And -- I'm dramatizing a bit, but it was like, "What are we missing?" They were like, "You're missing your secondary suite." This is an NHL superstar. He's played many seasons, has more than earned his fair share of ability to buy a large home or build one, and he was required by the bylaw to actually bring in a secondary suite. And so he did it. Had to basically go through a redesign process. And I thought, "Well, if even the wealthiest members of a community are making available at least the option to have that, I thought, oh, that's interesting." But to your point, that is a pretty big imposition on every single property owner. And the question is, would we see any of those things emerge just by happenstance, or by people saying, "Oh, I want that where I live." And maybe we take that course of action to not regulate our way into just a thicket where almost no project gets through on a first reading, on a first sort of smooth sailing, and we've got to make this easier, not harder. And so that's where, yeah, you want to be careful with this.

Abby Newsham 34:08

Yeah, you certainly don't want that. But that's why it's really hard, or that's why it's very important. It is kind of hard, but it's also really important to think through these standards and to really, I mean, if you want by-right development which is going to be the least expensive to permit to support affordability goals, you just need to get your standards right and have really hard conversations about, what are the standards? What kinds of standards as a community do we want and why? Digging into, why do we have this standard? What's the intent? Are there other ways to meet intent? Are there ways that our professionals, our city staff people, can support these intents and help to get to yes and design a great project? I mean, I think that's another thing is that a lot of cities just don't give their staff very much credit, an administrative ability to work with these developers to meet an intent and design a good project. There's a lot of like, you meet the standard, or you have to go through this public hearing process. And it makes things very political, and so giving some authority to the professionals that you hire in-house, you have planners, you have people who presumably know what they're doing. If you hire great people who can help to facilitate these projects and help to support the interests of the community and implement what the code says. So, yeah, having a code that aligns with your community is really important, and I would never recommend freezing it forever. That is an asinine idea.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman 36:01

And the last thing that just occurred to me as you're sharing that is, to a certain extent, I can just look and take notes on what they are doing. But what stands out to me is that there are many folks in Littleton that have said, "This is not for us. We need to step back from this." It's interesting in the article too. It says what the city was proposing in terms of allowing more densification to occur within neighborhoods, allowing more investment to occur, they said, "That's a sneak attack on our neighborhoods." And so instead, they were trying to come out front and say, "We're going to pass a charter that doesn't allow any sneak attacks." And what have we done that this has become the way that even a simple thing like a modest zoning bylaw change is characterized as a sneak attack? That speaks to then, I think, some of the healing, or the hard work that has to happen in Littleton and so many other communities like it. Similarly, I mean Lakewood -- I think showing the human side of who benefits from this, that actually we all benefit. And I know we were very thoughtful about this when we rolled out the first housing toolkit. We said, "We need to provide profiles of individuals whose lives are meaningfully made better simply through things like being able to live in an undersized home, like a shotgun house in Pensacola, being able to live with neighbors or with roommates, and then eventually subdivide part of the home like Monty Anderson." Doing other projects like that normalizes, "Who is this?" This is not for some out-of-state Airbnb renter. This is for somebody that just lives here, contributes here, has new needs that have emerged. And so I wrote a piece about a woman in my community who sold half of the equity of her lot and home to her niece. She was able, with the money that she gained from the land sale, to build herself a backyard cottage that perfectly met all of her needs. And the seniors around in her life are like, "How can we do that? We want to do that," and yet code, up until recently, didn't allow that. And now I'm hopeful -- now that actually our province has stepped in and said, "No, you need to allow that type of stuff," I'm hopeful we'll see a lot more people that are house rich, cash poor make arrangements like that, and take a big step forward in doing that. Her one piece of advice was make sure whoever is the primary income earner of the person that buys 50% of your property has life insurance, and that you take out a life insurance policy on them, just to ensure that they can always meet their mortgage payment and you can always be secure and in place.

Abby Newsham 38:51

Oh, that's good advice. Some a little freebie for Upzoned listeners, a very exciting concept, especially for older family members, saying, "Hey, we'll actually make a deal, not just when we die, that you get the house, but why don't we figure out a way that, for a time, we can have separate quarters if we desire or you live together." But that's more fraught in many of our contexts. Figure it out and do some cool stuff that way.

Abby Newsham 38:51

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think looking at the profiles of the people who are living in these places, and just the idea that different housing types has become so -- it's being seen as an attack, right? And I think a lot of people are being -- I'm just going to say I think people are being manipulated, because they're being told to be afraid of these things without data, without -- it's just all through speculation. And people are being driven by fear, and that fear is potentially going to cause them to pass something that is asinine and actually against their best interest, as homeowners, as residents in a community, as a citizen. I say be skeptical of initiatives that are trying to make you afraid of things. Because I think that that's a perfect way to be manipulated.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman 39:56

And if they're willing to change course, I will personally provide balloons that are for deed restriction day, when those that want to sign their deed restrictions --

Abby Newsham 40:06

There's an attorney out there somewhere that will, pro bono, write up a deed restriction, and they can decide that they want to freeze their lot in place. And I'm sure there's somebody in the Strong Towns network who can help them with that, rather than passing city-wide freeze-in-place ordinance that would just not be in their best interest.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman 40:31

A city-wide straightjacket by all intents. I know that there is an option to always submit a request for non-conforming use. But that is, we know how difficult and fraught that can be. One other quick thing I'll say is John Aguilar is the Denver Post author of this article, did a fantastic knockout job. I think the last time I was on I critiqued the lightness, or I said it was sort of a press release version of an article. This was a well-done piece of reporting on local concerns that have broader implications. So hats off, John. That was a great piece.

Abby Newsham 41:06

Yeah, this is a great piece. And I think it showcased kind of both sides of the -- I know people get mad about, like, "Oh, you're both-sidesing," but I think it is important to understand the perspectives here, and I think you did a good job at laying them out and kind of explaining them, because it is something that's playing out in a lot of places across the country. These conversations are not just happening in Colorado and it's driven by a lot of fear. It's driven by a lot of misconceptions, a lot of lack of actual data or research. It's -- and, you know, it's like, there's a lot of emotion tied up in where you live. So I don't blame people for that, but I think that people get really driven by fear and then do things that are going to be hurtful for their community in the long run. So, well, Norm, I will leave it there. We can continue following this story, but thank you for bringing it. With that, let's go to the Downzone.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman 42:18

Yeah, so my Downzone is just very simple. I am delighting that the Toronto Blue Jays beat the New York Yankees, and just delighting in all of the sense of that had been building for so long. And so for the Blue Jays to now have moved on, I'm not normally like a big baseball fan, but I am definitely on this bandwagon, jumped on with both feet and super excited about it. So there's lots of room -- come join us on this Strong Towns Blue Jays bandwagon. I think I can call it that. I know that I've got to contend with Chuck and a few others on what they're doing, but, yeah, that's been fun. So that's my little bit of culture.

Abby Newsham 42:56

Yeah? Well, all I've got really -- so I've been just extremely busy the past few months, traveling a lot for work, basically since July and I just finished my last trip, okay, other than my sister's wedding in a couple of weeks. This is I had my last travel of the season. I think so things are going to slow down a little bit, just in time for fall, and the weather just changed. So I'm in a pretty good place right now. I'm maybe a little grumpy, but because it was a long week, but I'm super excited about fall. I'm going to a Fall Festival tonight. I'm going to go to a pumpkin patch this weekend and just do all the stuff. So I'm pumped about that, and excited to kind of have some downtime over this fall season, into the end of the year, and get back into doing some painting again. I also had a lot of -- I was doing art festivals and traveling for work, so my car is filled with a table, tents, weights, because I also use this stuff for community engagement stuff. So I just, I feel like I'm like a circus person. I just have all this stuff. I have a wagon. So I'm gonna clean out my car this weekend. How about that? That's my Downzone.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman 44:20

You'll be totally ready for any kind of farmers markets. Just rapid deployment.

Abby Newsham 44:26

I'm ready, yeah, literally, I did a farmer's market. Actually, yeah. I just, I rapid deployment, if anyone needs me to set up a tent and do some kind of showcase, I got you.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman 44:38

What was it like to be on the other side of the farmers market, sort of table, like being a vendor?

Abby Newsham 44:43

Oh, I love -- so I've been doing a lot of because I do art shows and stuff now. So I really like it. It's really fun. And you meet a lot of different people. I actually not a farmers market, but I was at like a -- it was like a -- I think that they called it a Fall Festival, but it was really awesome. And I was a vendor there, and I met a brewery owner, and I'm going to go look at their space in a couple of weeks, but I'm going to showcase there in December. So I'm going to bring pieces for them, and they will showcase it. And, yeah, I'm really excited about it. So you meet people at these events, and you also meet other artists and learn what they're doing. And like different types of painters and pottery people, you just meet all kinds of people. Makes me feel like I am like a circus person, because you just, you pop up, and then you meet whoever happens to be around you, and then sometimes you see people that do other events too. So it's like this own culture. And sometimes I meet urban planners or people involved in other cities. I met somebody who runs the historic district in the city regionally. So, you know, everyone goes to festivals and farmers markets, so you end up meeting all kinds of people. So I actually, I find this stuff really fun. It does burn me out at the end of the day, though, because I'm like, it's so much social interaction, but I do enjoy it.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman 46:16

Yeah, well, that's awesome. And your Instagram for your art?

Abby Newsham 46:19

Oh, for art, I'm promoting it. Okay, fine, it's Abby Kat Paints, K-A-T, not like the animal.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman 46:30

Yeah, there we go. Well, I always like to find a way to get you to plug that, because I totally --

Abby Newsham 46:36

Yeah, thank you. I'm not very good at self-promotion, so I appreciate it. Cool. All right. Norm, well, you have a great weekend.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman 46:45

Yeah, you too. Thanks, Abby.

Abby Newsham 46:47

Thanks. Bye.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman 46:48

Bye.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman 46:49

This episode was produced by Strong Towns, a nonprofit movement for building financially resilient communities. If what you heard today matters to you, deepen your connection by becoming a Strong Towns member at strongtowns.org/membership.