Gov. Jared Polis’ recent announcement of legislation intended to reform zoning ordinances across Colorado has ignited a fierce debate about housing, land use and the state’s power over municipal governments.

But for all its admirable ambition, the flaws in the bill’s minutia prevent it from being the zoning reform that Colorado needs.

Zoning is complicated, bureaucratic, and, if we’re being honest, rather boring. Boulder’s land-use code runs to 16 chapters. The section on zoning, while relatively short, is the sort of Byzantine legalese that a casual citizen might use as a sleep aid. (Denver’s zoning code is 1,516 pages long.)

For decades, the mechanisms of zoning shaped our cities and towns while remaining relatively under the radar. After all, who wants to wade through a 1,516-page document and then attend a public hearing?

In the past few years, though, as the realities of our housing crisis have become impossible to ignore, zoning has slowly made its way into the limelight.

And rightfully so. Zoning has quite literally defined where we live and work. It has routed our commutes and dictated the locations of restaurants and shops, of duplexes, triplexes, apartments and ADUs. It has determined which house has a yard and which requires a garage. Zoning has established the very landscape of our community.

All of this, of course, has come at a steep cost. Recently, a consensus has been forming around the notion that zoning may in fact be the root cause of a whole bevy of systemic injustices. In addition to being one of the foundations of rising housing costs, zoning has cemented segregation, exacerbated inequities and forced never-ending urban sprawl. (Zoning has a long history of being used as an intentionally discriminatory tool.)

Put simply, it is likely that no single effort could do more to fight Colorado’s housing crisis than radically altering our zoning practices.

It’s no wonder then why Gov. Polis made it the bedrock of his most recent housing initiative.

Polis’ plan aims to eliminate single-family housing zoning across the state. The legislation, if brought to fruition, would likely have an immense effect on Colorado’s housing market.

According to the Denver Post, the reforms “will seek to encourage denser building in key urban areas; to better study and plan to address housing needs; and cut ‘red tape’ by clearing the way for property owners to build more units on their land. The bill would significantly alter single-family zoning in Colorado cities, allowing for duplexes and triplexes to be built without current local approval processes.”

These are admirable goals and each is worth pursuing. But the sweeping nature of Polis’ proposal and the manner in which the state is seeking a universal overhaul of a decidedly local matter has provided plenty to take issue with.

For his part, Polis explained that he was engaging in such drastic reform because this local matter was causing a statewide crisis and while simultaneously preventing the state from fighting back in any sort of meaningful way.

But the points raised by the Colorado Municipal League, a nonpartisan organization that represents the interests of 270 cities and towns across the state, are salient. Speaking with the Denver Post, mayors and local leaders argued that Colorado’s communities are too varied to have a one-size-fits-all zoning ordinance. Ski towns and farm communities have different needs. So too does Boulder differ from Colorado Springs and Fort Collins and Grand Junction.

Some local leaders even went so far as to raise the specter of litigation. A well-constructed lawsuit could tie up Polis’ bill in the courts for years to come, essentially relegating it to nothing more than a symbolic gesture.

Of course, no housing policy is going to appease everyone. But the willingness of some Colorado communities to fight this legislation, even while they face housing crises of their own, speaks to the need to bring more people to the table to seek zoning reforms that can benefit our entire state.

More broadly, if the effort is truly about generating affordable housing, applying requirements for the percentage of affordable units in a new development is a must. Boulder’s current inclusionary housing program requires that most new developments contribute 25% of the total units as permanently affordable housing. Such a mandate would go a long way toward proving this bill is truly about giving Colorado renters affordable options. (Polis’ bill requires inclusionary housing near transit stations and requires municipalities to identify areas where displacement may occur and use other methods to try to prevent it.)

In announcing his plan, Polis declared that Colorado was at a fork in the road. “Do we want to go down a route — and we’ve seen this play out in other states like California, where there are cities with average home prices above $1 million and 16-lane highways that have 8-hour rush hours — or do we want to create a better way, a Colorado way, to plan for a future that’s livable, affordable and that works for all of us.”

Our legislative leaders are on the right track. California, for all its beauty, is no model for Colorado, and altering our zoning laws is one promising step toward avoiding a truly unaffordable future.

But this particular effort is misguided and has gotten off on the wrong foot.

More requirements must be set for affordable housing to prevent developers from finding loopholes, while on the other hand, more flexibility must be built in to recognize the diverse needs of municipalities across the state. (Threading the needle between flexibility and loopholes is difficult, but possible.)

And, as this important legislative work is ongoing, we must continue to engage in the difficult dialogue with those who view zoning reform as the harbinger of destruction for their neighborhood. The goal of zoning reform — and of densification in general — is not to impinge upon anyone’s quality of life, but rather to provide more people with the opportunity to have a similarly good quality of life — something systemic injustice has often denied them.

Let’s celebrate taking our first steps toward the sort of progressive reform necessary to fight Colorado’s housing crisis while acknowledging that more work is needed to find a solution that can meet the needs of the diverse communities across our state.

— Gary Garrison for the Editorial Board