Having just endorsed the building of 120 new apartment units, most designed for low-income renters, the Commerce City Council needs to ask itself what those apartments will do for the city. The buildings will be a source of property taxes to help fund our schools and the city will sell natural gas, water and sewage treatment to the project. The new development is in the shared tax district, so the Commerce School System will get only a quarter or less of the ad valorem taxes on the building and grounds. But the biggest hit is that the proposed development would be primarily low-income rental housing. Commerce doesn't need more low-income rental housing.
Housing is the last choice, and low-income rental housing is the worst.
Commerce gains nothing by promoting the construction of low-income rental housing. That's because the proposed line was moved from the property of people opposed to the project and onto land owned by the wife of chairman Alex Bryan. It's a move that could make Mrs. Bryan's land much more valuable in the future. Probably in the next local political campaign, if not sooner, it will be argued that the move was made to benefit the family of Bryan. Nothing will be said to show that all five property owners did not want the sewer line running through their property.