10 things I want to fix in Denver.

Denver refunds property tax, up to $1,000 for a renter. But for 2025 rebates, a renter only qualifies if 62 or older or disabled, under 30% of median income, and paid in full all year. A homeowner qualifies up to 80%, and raising a kid counts.

In the 2024 rebate year, the city denied renters at more than twice the homeowner rate.

I'd open it to working renters up to 60% of median income, families with kids, and anyone who fell behind, and judge you on your own paycheck and your share of the rent, never your roommates'. A lease is not a marriage.

I've shopped at Mutiny Information Cafe for years. It spent 11 years at 2 South Broadway, and in 2024 the lease was up, the rent was going up, and the building was for sale. Mutiny moved to Englewood. Chop Shop spent a decade at 4990 East Colfax, and when the lease came up in 2024, the landlord wanted double.

Colorado's ban on rent control covers homes. No Colorado law limits what a landlord can charge a storefront, and Denver's Legacy Business Program comes with recognition and referrals, and no money.

First, legacy lease grants. San Francisco pays landlords up to $4.50 a square foot a year to sign 10-year leases with its legacy businesses. I'd do the same, but the grant only pays while the rent stays within a published limit.

Second, renew it fair or pay the move. Once a business has been on the block 3 years and pays its rent, a landlord who won't renew, or wants more than 10 percent over last year, owes it a month's rent for every year it was there if it leaves, 3 months at least and 12 at most. An appraiser from a city list can show an offer is fair, and then the landlord owes nothing. Push out a 10-year tenant, write a 10-month check.

Both go to the City Attorney before they go to council.

Denver's new rules for neglected buildings, in effect since August 1, 2026, cover buildings that are boarded up, unsafe, or ignoring a city order. A storefront that's clean, locked, and dead for years costs its owner nothing.

On the commercial corridors, I'd start a vacancy registry. A ground-floor space that hasn't served the public for 12 straight months registers and pays a yearly fee, and the fee goes up every year it sits.

Every way out is free: lease it, list it at a plausible rent, pull a renovation permit, or lend the window to a pop-up.

On January 6, 2025, Denver cut recycling pickup from every week to every other week. The bill didn't change.

I'd make price follow service: when the city cuts pickups, every bill drops the same month, automatically.

Council paused new data centers unanimously in May 2026, and the pause runs out in May 2027.

I'd vote to keep it until council writes the rule that replaces it: water, power, and noise on the record before a permit.

Build where nobody sleeps. Council rezoned the Near Southeast in one vote on January 6, 2025. Run the same play on the parking lots, the emptied office districts, the stadium land, and the industrial parcels where nothing spends the night but inventory.

Downtown offices sat 38.6 percent vacant in the second quarter of 2026, per CBRE. Turning an empty tower into homes should be allowed outright, on a timeline an owner can count on.

In the neighborhoods, I'm for duplexes to fourplexes, with conditions written in: relocation help and a right of return for renters who get displaced, affordability deeper than a token, and a review that publishes the results.

None of this makes anyone's lease cheaper next month. It slows how fast prices climb, over years.