This April 4, if Denver votes yes on Ballot Measure 2O, Habitat for Humanity of Metro Denver and Elevation Community Land Trust will have a rare opportunity to build over 300 affordable for-sale homes in the Park Hill neighborhood. These homes will provide stable, permanent homeownership for families — homes where their children will grow up, where they will share meals and great memories, and where they will build roots and generational wealth.

 

Westside Investment Partners has agreed to donate 7.8 acres of the former Park Hill Golf Course land to our two nonprofits to build these homes. The land will go into a land trust, making these homes permanently affordable for residents. We’ve seen other publications value the worth of the easement exclusively on the land, applying a value of $3.5M per acre. If an equivalent standard is applied, the value of the land to our organizations is approximately $26,000,000 — a substantial contribution that we as affordable housing developers recognize as transformational.

 

When we consider the power of affordable homeownership, we think of families like Arthur and Gianna — natives of north Denver whose rental house has aging fixtures and old windows that let in the elements year-round. Gianna says that stability is what excites her most about moving into their new Habitat home this spring. “It’s the little things I look forward to,” she says. “Cooking for my mom. Hosting friends and family. Seeing my kids grow up with plenty of space.”

 

Owning an affordable home has immediate benefits for families like Arthur and Gianna — and it also has ripple effects for generations. This is the power of what we do every day at Habitat and Elevation — and this is what we have the opportunity to build with ballot measure 2O.

 

A vote against 2O does not ensure that affordable housing can be built somewhere else in Park Hill. We can be certain, however, that an affordable housing project of this size may never happen again in Denver.