Denver Budget & Policy Committee: We Are the Land & Predatory Home Investing – Feb 12, 2026
Denver Budget & Policy Committee Meeting – February 12, 2026
The Budget and Policy Committee of Denver City Council held a bi-weekly meeting on February 12, 2026, with two briefings: first, an update on the 'We Are the Land' oral history project centered on American Indian voices, and second, a policy proposal to regulate residential property wholesaling to curb predatory home investing. Council members discussed both topics in depth, asking questions and offering suggestions for next steps.
Discussion Items
We Are the Land Oral History Project
- Abby Christman, Principal City Planner with Landmark Preservation and Community Planning and Development (CPD), presented the 'We Are the Land' project, an oral history collaboration with Denver's American Indian community and tribal nations. The project documents living history, traditional knowledge, and contemporary American Indian life.
- The budget grew from $77,000 to $320,000 through additional grants and fundraising to support tribal convenings, oral histories, a documentary, a youth art contest, and a National Register nomination for the Denver Indian Center (listed at the national level of significance).
- Community engagement included two tribal convenings (October 2023 and October 2024), 17 oral histories, monthly advisory meetings with the American Indian Commission, and presence at Denver March Pow Wow.
- The historic context document is organized into eight chapters arranged cyclically around 'four hills' (traditional knowledge, removal, return, reconnection) to reflect indigenous perspectives. Key themes included Denver as ancestral unceded territory, the Sand Creek Massacre as ongoing trauma, and indigenous resilience.
- Community recommendations included: maintaining government-to-government relationships with tribes, incorporating Native language signage, reintroducing native plants, expanding education, and creating a permanent tribal liaison. Council members praised the project's careful relationship-building and reciprocal approach.
- Councilmember Alvidrez asked about translation (not currently available in Spanish or other languages). Councilmember Gilmore noted the need for a tribal liaison and stable funding for convenings (the 2025 convening budget was cut to $45,000). Council President Sandoval suggested engaging the Native American Commission once reformed to ensure implementation.
Predatory Home Investing / Residential Property Wholesaling
- Councilmember Lewis and policy aide Jesse Carey presented a proposed ordinance to regulate residential property wholesaling – the practice of investors buying homes with cash offers and quickly reselling for profit, often without a state real estate license. The proposal combines elements from Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Baltimore ordinances.
- Key components: a licensing registry overseen by Licensing and Consumer Protection, a no-solicitation list for homeowners, prohibited conduct (misrepresentations, harassment), a three-day cooling-off period, and mandatory disclosure forms for wholesalers.
- Data from public records (2003–2004) showed homes bought and flipped for profit with no improvements. A 2023 Drexel University study found homes sold to investors sell for an average of $126,000 less than to individuals, disproportionately affecting distressed neighborhoods.
- Council members raised questions about: interaction with state licensing for realtors (exempted), enforcement challenges, focus on vulnerable populations (seniors, probate sales), and potential use of title company data. Councilmember Paridy recommended engaging Colorado Legal Services and Brothers Redevelopment. Councilmember Gonzalez-Gutierres suggested prohibiting solicitation signs. Council President Sandoval emphasized the need to understand other cities' experiences with loopholes.
- Next steps: discussions with Mayor's Office, Technology Services, Human Rights and Community Partnerships, District Attorney's Office, and industry stakeholders; further refinement of the draft before committee.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes were taken. The committee received the briefings and provided feedback.
- Councilmember Lewis committed to sharing the full data set and bill draft with all council members and to continue stakeholder engagement before bringing the wholesaling ordinance to committee.
- Council members expressed strong interest in co-sponsoring the wholesaling legislation and in supporting implementation of the 'We Are the Land' recommendations.
Meeting Transcript
Welcome back to this bi-weekly meeting of the Budget and Policy Committee of Denver City Council. Join us for the discussion as the Budget and Policy Committee starts now. Thank you. Sorry about that. I was finishing up a call. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Budget and Policy on Feb Monday. February 9th. We'll get started with council introductions and then we can start. I'll start with my left. I'm Councilwoman Amanda Sandoval. Good afternoon. Daryl Watson, Fine District 9. Laura Alvitres, Lucky District 7. Chantal Lewis, District 8. Sarah Parity, one of your council members at large. Hello, Sedona Gonzalez- Kuchanas, your other council member at large. Kevin Flynn, Southwest Denver's District 2. Stacey Gilmore, District 11. Good afternoon, Diana Romero- Campbell Southeast Denver District 4 Jamie Torres West Denver District 3 hey Denver Chris Hines Denver's perfect tent great we have two briefings before us today we have CPD here with us and then we have a by Councilmember Lewis up next. So we have 42 slides. We have 45 minutes. I can go quickly. Okay. The next one we'll need to have a little bit more time. The floor is yours. Cynthia, just introduce yourself. Sure. I'm Abby Christman, Principal City Planner with Landmark Preservation and Community Planning and Development. And I'm here today to talk about the We Are the Land project. So this project was kind of co-led by me and my colleague, Becca Deershow. But Becca Deershow is out on leave, so that is why you were only getting me today. Just want to make sure that I acknowledge she put in an equal amount of the work. So today I am going to go through what is We Are the Land, what were the parts of this project, the community role, why we felt it was essential to center Native voices, our timeline and funding, some highlights of what we heard from the community, community recommendations for the city of Denver moving forward, and then what's next. So what is We Are the Land? We Are the Land is an oral history project that centers American Indian voices to tell a fuller story of Denver, one that didn't begin with the city's founding and didn't end with removal. It's a collaboration between Landmark Preservation, Denver's American Indian community, and representatives from tribal nations that have ongoing cultural and historical ties to the city to document living history, traditional knowledge, and contemporary American Indian life. So this is the second in our Denver in Context series. The goal of the series is to recognize and honor all those who have been part of Denver's history, celebrating diverse cultures, and acknowledging tragic histories. Doing this by connecting with the community, identifying significant places, elevating and sharing stories, and then producing thematic context, like our big fat context that we have produced for this project. So what is a historic context? It's a preservation term. It generally is talking about documents that are really trying to tie stories, the stories of how a place, how it developed, why it developed, where it developed with the built environment. So it's trying to tell the history, but also tie it to the landscape around us. Explore how political, social, cultural, and economic trends have shaped our built environment. And for this project, we were definitely pushed by the community to really look beyond the built environment and also really consider Denver as a cultural landscape or as an indigenous landscape. And the goal of a context then is also to provide the tools we need to evaluate potential eligibility of sites and landscapes for designation and to raise community awareness of history. So the different parts of our project. So first off just a little bit about who was doing this work, so our project team and roles. So Landmark was the lead on this. Our mighty team of three people did all the project management, grant writing and administration, community engagement. We organized tribal convenings. We provided research assistance. We wrote a national register nomination, and we did a lot of context editing and revisions. Then we had Project Mosaic, who are
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