LITTLETON, Colo. — In less than a month, Littleton voters will have an important decision to make when it comes to Ballot Measure 3A, an amendment to the city charter that would prevent any rezoning of single-family neighborhoods.
"We want to protect single-family neighborhoods. That's it, that's the first sentence," said Mark Harris, board member of Rooted in Littleton, the community group behind 3A. "We also added a requirement that the city has to notify affected property owners if they ever come out and try a blanket rezoning type process again... we aren't directing anything against individual property owners. They can do with their property as they always have."
Those opposing 3A say more home options will help neighborhoods, not hurt them.
"There's no disruption of the flavor or character of the neighborhood. In fact, these duplexes and triplexes are the character of the neighborhood," said Patrick Santana, founder of the group Vibrant Littleton, which opposes 3A. "There's a mix of people with a mix of housing types, and that's really what Old Littleton was about."
Santana is also a member of Littleton's planning commission. He said if 3A is approved, it would be difficult to reverse. He called the move extremely uncommon.
"In Colorado, we need land uses and an ability to change those things as needed," Santana said. "That adaptability is an important part of governance. When you lock out the ability to make those changes and make it very difficult, you end up locking communities into things that no longer work for them."
When asked, Harris agreed that the ballot question intends to make it harder for the Littleton City Council to change zoning and neighborhoods without residential input.
"To have the city council come along and wholesale change the character of your neighborhood after you've purchased it, invested in it, and plan to live there, and then change it to put up multiplexes everywhere, that's just the wrong thing to do," Harris said.
Santana is hopeful that Littleton residents will vote against 3A.
"Two things can be true at the same time. We can be concerned with neighborhood character, or the rate of change, and share those concerns, but it can also be true that we don't want to have those concerns locked into our city's constitution," he said.
The City of Littleton recently challenged the legality of the charter amendment in court, claiming it would violate state law if passed. The city is seeking a judicial review of 3A.
"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 Kyle Schlachter when Denver7 interviewed him earlier this year.
Santana noted that 3A would roll back the land use code to what it was on January 1, 2025. He said there have already been land use changes that residents have taken advantage of.
"With 3A, we could just be taking away people's rights to build an ADU, because we have that right now everywhere in Littleton," Santana said. "This will pull us back in time to January and remove that recently enacted right [on] July 1. So everybody who could be building a cottage or an in-law unit will lose that right. We could face lawsuits from people that have started that process and lost it, We're out of compliance with state regulation."
Harris and the Rooted in Littleton group disagree.
"ADUs or accessory land uses — bees, goats and those things — those are accessory uses. In the code, we didn't use those terms at all," he said. "In the amendment, you won't find those terms. We use single-family residential land use. That's what we're focused on: single-family residential housing. That's it."
As for the lawsuit, the group released a statement, which said in part, "The City’s lawsuit is flawed, untimely, and interferes with citizens’ rights to amend their own charter. Filing this suit just weeks before the election seems like a deliberate attempt to block voters, but we are ready to fight for our community."
A virtual hearing for the case is scheduled for Thursday at 11:30 a.m.
- Read the full statement below
"On September 5th, The City of Littleton filed a lawsuit against 3A, the proposed Charter Amendment seeking to preserve single family residential neighborhoods. 3A was successfully certified and placed on the ballot for our upcoming election on November 4th. The City specifically named Rooted in Littleton (“RIL”) as an “Interested Party”, and has formally served RIL with the lawsuit.
The City filed this lawsuit against RIL’s Ballot measure 3A by using a unique, recently enacted state statute which allows a municipality to seek a judge’s decision which could void the proposed ballot measure before the citizens even have a chance to vote on it. Indeed, the one -of -its- kind statute also contains a provision requiring the judge to stop the election on the ballot measure during the entire time the lawsuit and any appeal are pending.
The lawsuit using this new statute is not mandatory. The City of Littleton made the choice to sue RIL and 3A before the election. The City has opposed our Charter Amendment from the outset because, if it is enacted by the vote of the citizens of Littleton, the Council will no longer have the power to impose blanket density in the form of duplexes, triplexes, and quadruplexes in all of our neighborhoods on their own without further citizen approval. They tried that earlier this year with Ordinance 31 which they pulled in January after our strenuous opposition on behalf of Littleton citizens.
Rooted In Littleton, comprised of citizens from all over this great City, has been sued.We will intervene in the City’s lawsuit to properly defend 3A against all of the City’s inaccurate claims. 3A is a Littleton citizen directed ballot measure in which over two thousand citizens eagerly signed petitions to qualify it for the upcoming election. We will be defending their interests as well in seeing that their votes get counted .
Our goal is to simply let the people of Littleton decide on the composition and character of its many beautiful single family residential neighborhoods. We intend to vigorously fight the City’s effort to prevent our citizens from voting on 3A. The City’s lawsuit is flawed in several respects, is untimely, and unconstitutionally interferes with Littleton’s citizens’ rights to amend their own City Charter.
While we fight this unnecessary and improper lawsuit brought against us, we continue to ask for your support, your attention to this important effort and, of course, your vote in the upcoming election. Go to Yeson3A.org to learn more and donate to this cause. Yes on 3A!"
Election day is November 4.
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