Upzoned 2 Towns, 2 Responses to the Housing Crisis. Which Will Succeed?
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Oct 15, 2025 Norm Van Eeden-Petersman, an expert from Strong Towns, discusses the contrasting housing strategies of Littleton and Lakewood, Colorado. He highlights Littleton’s restrictive approach to single-family homes versus Lakewood’s push for diverse housing options. The conversation dives into how suburban zoning laws create barriers to development and the emotional resistance to change. Norm advocates for targeted reforms and incremental housing solutions, cautioning against the long-term consequences of Littleton's measures while emphasizing the need for collaborative community planning.
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Diverging Suburban Strategies
- Lakewood is loosening zoning to allow more housing types and close a projected shortfall of ~5,800 homes over a decade.
- Littleton is moving the opposite direction, proposing Measure 3A to preserve single-family-only zoning across most of the city.
The Suburban Experiment Explained
- The suburban experiment relies on exclusion, resistance to change, and auto-dependency as core features.
- Allowing incremental change lets neighborhoods adapt rather than remain frozen as a single finished product.
Avoid Freezing Your Land Use Code
- Do not freeze an entire city's land use code to a single date because codes must evolve to handle new uses and technical standards.
- Preserve flexibility for process, infrastructure, and novel uses rather than locking rules in place via charter amendments.