Housing growth in Colorado could see far-reaching new limits with a proposed ballot measure.

Initiative 122 would give each municipality and county the ability to pass voter-approved limits on housing growth, similar to Golden’s 1 percent growth limit since 1995 and Lakewood’s newly passed limit this year.

The initiative would also institute for the Front Range counties, from Weld all the way down to El Paso, a mandatory 1 percent limit, which the voters could opt-out of through referenda in those jurisdictions.

Daniel Hayes of Golden and Charlotte Robinson of Denver are listed as the measure’s proponents.

“I haven’t met anybody who doesn’t want to see less development,” Robinson said, according to Westword. “We’re paving paradise and building a parking lot.”

Last year, the population in metro Denver grew by 1.6 percent. The Brookings Institution found that in the Western U.S. in general, housing supply grew slower than the demand during the entire period from 1950 to 2010.

About the state’s increasing population, Hayes said that “it’s getting to the point where it’s like California.”

However, California officials have described their state to be in a housing affordability crisis, and a high-profile legislative attempt this year to override local governments who blocked housing construction failed.

Initiative 122 would allow for exceptions to the Colorado growth limit for senior housing and affordable housing.

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