LITTLETON, Colo. — There's a big decision for voters in Littleton coming this November after a community-led citizen group was able to gather enough signatures to put a proposed charter amendment on the ballot.
Like many residents, Mark Harris was enamored with Littleton's small town charm when he moved there eight years ago.
"We wanted a hometown feel. We wanted nice, quiet neighborhoods," he said.
That's why a recent city council ordinance caught his eye.
"We spent a good part of 2024...—we had five public meetings, we had public outreach, talking about what it would look like to allow duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, into single-family residential areas," said Littleton Mayor Kyle Schlachter.
It was part of the city's effort to take a look at inclusionary housing options for the growing city.
"We had about 300 residents show up in our council chambers at that meeting saying that they hadn't heard about this. They didn't like the changes. So, council listened to them, and we said, 'Okay, fine. Well, we will stop this and pause this,' Schlachter said, "We didn't want to make some policy changes that we felt like the whole community, or a portion of the community, didn't understand, and so that's why we paused that then."
He notes there's no current council business that would pick the topic back up at this point. He estimates the earliest that could happen is 2027.
But for neighbors who are part of the Rooted in Littleton group, they wanted to make sure those types of changes don't happen again anytime soon.
Harris helped draft this proposed charter change:
Shall Section 65.5. Preservation of Neighborhood Land Use Restrictions, be added to clarify the intent of the citizens to preserve single-family residential land use and ensure that current and future owners of property in certain residential zoning districts may rely on restrictions on land uses that protect their properties. Accordingly, land uses of properties presently permitted under the Littleton Unified Land Use Code (ULUC) within zoning districts Small Lot Residential (SLR), Medium Lot Residential (MLR), Large Lot, Residential (LLR), and Acreage Residential (ACR) are limited to uses specified therein as of January 1, 2025.Furthermore, any action by Council to initiate any comprehensive rezoning and official zoning map amendments, including text changes, shall first require notification to all affected property owners by first-class mail delivered by the United States Postal Service. Nothing herein shall prohibit or prevent a property owner from seeking rezoning of the owner’s property.
"If the charter amendment is passed in November, this will give us, A.) basically a two-year break of preserving single-family residences throughout Littleton. It'll give us all a chance to confer with the city council members, those that are going to be elected and those that still still remain in office after this coming election, to build a consensus on density efforts," said Harris.
The mayor told Denver7 city staff, particularly the city attorney, has brought up concerns about the legality of the charter amendment, if passed.
"There's four sentences, but they kind of conflict with each other. The second sentence says there can be no changes to land use, and then the third sentence says there can be changes and done this certain way. There's also some conflict with the state constitution, and whether this is actually constitutional for taking away powers of the legislative body of the city, which would be the city council," said Mayor Schlachter. "Also the fact that [we wouldn't be] complying with state law. If this charter amendment were to pass, we would be out of compliance with state law."
Harris rejects the notion that the amendment would be at odds with any laws.
"I've heard a lot of complaints and arguments about the charter amendment. 'It's ambiguous. It's confusing. It'll freeze development.' And frankly, all of those are untrue. It's four simple sentences. It preserves single family neighborhoods until the people come together and vote again to change that," he said.
As a formality, council will have a second reading on the proposed charter change on Sept. 2 where it'll then be sent to the ballot.
In the end, Littleton voters will decide what the future of growth in their community could look like.





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