The Colorado Springs City Council and the Mayor’s Office are divided over whether to oppose Gov. Jared Polis’ recent executive order tying state funds to cities with compliance on controversial state housing bills.

City Council passed a resolution Tuesday taking a stand against the executive order and recent state laws that try to implement housing rules in Colorado Springs, which they said were unconstitutional intrusions on the city’s home rule authority.

“They risk turning vibrant cities like ours into regulatory shadows of Denver, unable to preserve what makes us livable and unique,” Councilmember David Leinweber said.

Gov. Jared Polis to local governments: Comply with housing laws or lose funding

Mayor Yemi Mobolade’s office advised council not to provoke the issue. Chief of Staff Jamie Fabos told council that intentionally stepping out of compliance with the vote could place up to $20 million in state funding at risk.

“City government’s responsibility to protect our budget is of higher value than symbolic saber rattling and we disagree with putting the budget at any risk for this reason,” Fabos said.

Polis issued an executive order on May 16 directing state agencies to tie certain funding pools to cities’ adoption of seven recent laws about housing and building requirements. Cities that have not accepted the state laws by October could lose millions of dollars from those funds.

On May 19, six Front Range cities filed a lawsuit against Polis over the order, which they said violated the state Constitution’s guarantees of home rule authority for cities on land use issues. The lawsuit focused on challenging bills that would eliminate minimum parking requirements and would require cities to add denser zoning around transit centers.

Colorado Springs has not joined the lawsuit.

6 Front Range cities sue over housing laws, governor’s threat to withhold state funds

Councilmember and Mayor Pro Tem Brian Risley led the push for the resolution Tuesday. Risley said Colorado Springs had made significant changes to address housing shortages and challenges unique to the area without being compelled by the state.

As an example, Risley pointed to the recent debate about expanding where accessory dwelling units can be built. The final rules approved by council differed from the state law on ADU zoning, most significantly by banning stand-alone units from being built in the Wildland Urban Interface.

“We felt that was something that would not be a good fit in our community. The state law requires that we put a blanket ADU law over our entire city,” Risley said.

Fabos said the state Department of Local Affairs told Colorado Springs it was in “sufficient compliance” with state laws after Polis signed the order. The city resolution, however, could be considered an action against the interest of the state laws that may take the city out of compliance.

It was unclear exactly which funding programs would be at risk. Many categories of funding were exempted from the executive order and agencies like the Department of Transportation and the Colorado Energy Office have until mid-June to finalize the list of funds that could be tied to compliance.

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Fabos told council that city staff estimated that $8.9 million in future transit funding from the state, $4.6 million of current transit funding and $2.5 million for city engineering could be affected.

The council passed the resolution 7-2, with votes against by Nancy Henjum and Kimberly Gold. Henjum said the home rule rights were an important issue, but her biggest concern was losing funds at a time when the city budget may already have to make cuts in 2026.

In a statement Wednesday, Fabos said the mayor’s approach was to work collaboratively with the state and federal government to improve Colorado Springs.

“Mayor Yemi and the administration believe strongly in defending Colorado Springs’ home rule authority and in the case (in which) the city’s interests are injured in a material way, we will take action,” Fabos said.