Westminster’s housing crisis faces local opposition, state demands

Jodi Lovejoy can look out the window of her Westminster apartment and see the mountains of the Front Range. She can track the rolling clouds and watch the weather change over the peaks, something she used to do with her children. The neighborhood is quiet, dotted by mature trees. She doesn’t own the two bedrooms she’s shared with her daughter for the past eight years , but the apartment feels like home.

Still, Lovejoy wishes she could own. She’s grown accustomed to the annual negotiation with her landlord about her rising rent. Last year, she hired a Realtor and explored Westminster’s housing market. But the market was too competitive, the homes she saw needed too much work, the HOA fees too expensive.

A therapist and middle-income earner, Lovejoy decided it wasn’t worth it. She settled in for another negotiation.

Dr. Jodi Lovejoy, director of Behavioral Health, works from her apartment in Westminster, Colorado on Thursday, March 7, 2024. She has lived at the apartment for eight years. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)

“I wanted to retire here. But I’m constantly worrying about where should I go? Because I don’t know that I can stay here,” the 56-year-old said. Her daughter is considering moving out of the state with her boyfriend in search of cheaper pastures. “If they stay, I would like to stay, but I don’t think that my life is going to be secure. It just makes me feel like my homeland has been taken over somehow, and I’m not going to be able to stay. So that makes me feel like — do I even belong in this community?”

Seeking housing solutions


From the mountains to the prairies, Colorado’s housing crisis is squeezing state residents in ways that make drastic choices an all-too-common part of their cost-of-living calculus.

Click here to read more from this series.

The circumstances weighing upon Lovejoy — a tight housing market, high rents, limited options outside of a traditional home — aren’t unique to her. Nor are they unique to Westminster: Like other Front Range cities, the suburb has struggled to address a shortfall of housing units and rising costs that have displaced lower-income residents and limited options for future generations. The city finds itself whipsawed between vocal residents who are opposed to more development and concerned about resources, and a statewide housing crisis that legislators and Gov. Jared Polis are eying with impatience.

Meanwhile, a new contingent on city council, elected in the latest swing of opinion about density and housing, is expected to spur a change in how the community approaches housing as it nears its limit of outward development.

“The story of Westminster is very much like other medium-sized Front Range cities: struggling with affordability, experiencing a housing unit shortfall,” said Peter LiFari, the CEO of the Westminster-based Maiker Housing Partners, an affordable housing developer.

The city faces the same debates over zoning and density as other cities and the state generally, he said. “It’s the story of entrenched, long-standing community members who are not comfortable with the growth trajectory of their city and the state, and how that correlates into housing stock and the decisions that need to be made to be able to deliver housing stock in today’s market environment.”

A recent study of Westminster’s housing needs — alongside interviews with 18 current and past city officials, advocates, renters and developers — describes a city at a crossroads. On the one hand, the study found that median household incomes had risen by 38% for renters and nearly 30% for homeowners in recent years. Homeownership had increased among younger residents since 2012. The cost of rent had actually decreased slightly after recent increases.

“We’ve been working toward increasing our affordable housing for at least 10 years,” said Sarah Nurmela, the city’s mayor pro tempore and a city planner. Though she acknowledged that the city had more work to do, she defended leaders’ efforts to address housing needs while balancing the need to conserve resources, like water, alongside residents’ appetite for development.

But some of the gains Westminster has made have come at the cost of lower- and middle-income residents who’ve been priced out of the city, according to a draft of the study published by the city. Westminster has a deep deficit of subsidized housing for its lowest-income residents, and its senior population is expected to balloon in the coming years.

Nova Morrow, right, with help from friend Roth, no last name given, is filling boxes and preparing to move from an apartment in Westminster to a place in Wheat Ridge to save hundreds a month on rent, on Feb. 23, 2024 in Westminster. (Photo By Kathryn Scott/Special to The Denver Post)
Nova Morrow, right, with help from friend Roth, no last name given, is filling boxes and preparing to move from an apartment in Westminster to a place in Wheat Ridge to save hundreds a month on rent, on Feb. 23, 2024 in Westminster. (Photo By Kathryn Scott/Special to The Denver Post)

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