Local governments can use the new guidance to add strategic growth elements to their comprehensive plans, as required by SB24-174.
In response to a law passed in 2024, Colorado’s Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) released final guidance for local governments seeking to accommodate population growth more strategically. That law, Senate Bill 24-127: Sustainable Affordable Housing Assistance, requires local governments in Colorado to include a new “Strategic Growth Element” in their Comprehensive Plans by the end of this year.
In many parts of Colorado, growth has taken the form of sprawling subdivisions built far from city centers — leading to long driving commutes, worsening congestion and pollution, higher infrastructure costs, and the overconsumption of water and our state’s precious open space. In contrast, strategic growth asks local governments to better manage how we grow by encouraging the construction of homes near job centers and transit, where infrastructure like roads and utility lines already exists.
The new Strategic Growth Elements must outline a community’s current and planned efforts to promote strategic growth and assess opportunities for infill or redevelopment on vacant or underutilized land near transit or job centers. The law also requires local governments to consider the full costs of the infrastructure and services needed to support new development on undeveloped land to ensure that new growth is fiscally sustainable over the long term.
Colorado has tried and failed to rein in sprawl in the past. From 2001-2011, Colorado lost 525 square miles of natural lands to development, second only to California in the American West – and across the state, not just in the Denver Metro area.
“DOLA’s new guidance will be extremely helpful to local governments as we all work together to curb harmful and inefficient sprawl in our beautiful state,” said Matt Frommer, transportation and land use policy manager for the Housing Forward Colorado (HFC) campaign at the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project (SWEEP). “Sprawl has shockingly negative impacts on household energy and transportation costs, infrastructure costs, water use, land conservation, wildfire risk, greenhouse gas emissions, and more. It’s imperative that local governments join the state in designing and implementing policies to encourage strategic growth.”
In January, HFC published a blog article summarizing the key takeaways from DOLA’s Oct. 2025 Statewide Strategic Growth Report, which analyzed the impacts of sprawl vs. strategic growth in Colorado. With the state’s population growing fast and already facing a shortage of 106,000 homes, the policies we enact now will determine whether Colorado’s residents have the choice of more sustainable, community-oriented living — while also keeping our local and state governments financially solvent over the long-term.
On March 4, HFC is partnering with the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute to co-host a Strategic Growth Workshop at the Denver University Western Places Western Spaces conference. Register here to learn more about fighting sprawl in Colorado.
For More Information: Caroline Leland, Outreach and Organizing Manager, cleland@swenergy.org, 252-450-9281 (c)