Seven adults and one baby co-own Queen City Cooperative, a cooperative household started in 2015 in Denver’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. Now one of several co-op homes in Denver, Queen City is home to artists, teachers, tech workers and academics who had previously struggled to find affordable housing in the city they call home.
Though popular around the country since the 1960s, co-op homes and other housing shared by unrelated adults were prohibited in Denver and many other Colorado municipalities until recently. Zoning rules defined "household" based on blood relationships and applied antiquated notions of "nuclear families" as the only appropriate residents of homes in single-unit and other low-density housing.
Tour a cooperative home and learn how the city, and eventually the state, worked with activists and community members to remove outdated housing occupancy rules from municipal zoning.
Learning Objectives:
Acquire an understanding of how zoning code definitions of “family” have led to inequitable housing outcomes for people who live with others who are not related by blood.
Discover how Denver and other nearby municipalities grappled with evolving concepts of how people live together in an effort to reduce obstacles to affordable housing.
Articulate the differences between these housing approaches and ensure that zoning codes in your city aren’t preventing people from finding housing, or the market from providing it.
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