NEWS: City of Denver Debating Regulations on Unrelated Adults

[Bridget Brazelton]

If you're a house hacker in the City of Denver, you may be painfully aware of the city's current stance on unrelated adults in a household. Denver currently allows just two unrelated adults per house, or up to three with a permit. Although the city tells me they only enforce the regulation when they receive a complaint, it's still a consideration that leaves some local house hackers thinking twice, or looking at buying in surrounding cities, such as Aurora, where the maximum number of unrelated adults is four.

Tonight, that may all change. As I type this, the city council is debating proposed changes to the group living rules that will increase the maximum number of unrelated adults from two to five. The final proposal will be voted on tonight and is the result of several years of work by the Group Living Advisory Committee with extensive feedback from the community (you can read some of the many hundreds of public comments here).

If you want to take a deep dive, you can view an overview of the proposal here, and draft text of the proposed amendment here.

In case you just want the highlight reel, notable points include:

• 1) Allows up to 5 adults of any relationship to live as part of a household
• 2) Rent-by-the-room scenarios managed by non-residents would still be prohibited in single unit, two unit, and row house zone districts
• 3) The 20% of properties still governed under Chapter 59 (The 'old zoning code') are not covered by this change
• 4) The number of vehicles allowed to be parked on a zone lot is also proposed to be changed. Current regulations allow 1 vehicle per driver, plus one additional. The new proposal allows an across the board maximum of 6 vehicles.

What do you think, Denver? As a real estate agent specializing in house hacking, as well as a house hacker and investor myself, I sincerely hope the city adopts these changes tonight and modernizes its views on what defines a household.