Following the organization of a committee seeking to repeal Denver’s new group living ordinance at the ballot box, supporters of the ordinance are calling the effort unproductive and expressed disappointment at one committee member’s incendiary online statements about immigrants.

“Council effectively struck a balance between diverse voices, something a politicized election in a low-turnout year is not well suited to manage,” read a joint statement from Councilwomen Jamie Torres, Robin Kniech, Amanda Sandoval and Council President Stacie Gilmore, all of whom voted for the group living text amendment to the Denver zoning code at a Feb. 8 meeting.

The group living amendment, which passed council by a margin of 11-2, had two primary components: first, it raised the number of unrelated adults allowed to live together in a single-family home from two to five. Second, it permitted residential care facilities and congregate housing to operate based on the number of residents, rather than type of use. 

Along those lines, the amendment, which applied to all parts of the city except approximately 20% that falls under an older zoning code, would expand the amount of territory in Denver where community corrections facilities can locate. The residences, colloquially known as halfway houses, were previously limited to just industrial and some downtown zoning districts.

Both pieces of the amendment underwent revisions, as the original limit on unrelated adults was as high as eight, and community corrections facilities would have been eligible for residential areas. Those changes, said the council members in their statement, “were all responsive to the very same proponents now suggesting that those changes weren’t good enough. We can’t discount the many calls for Council to go further and remove all restrictions from the group living zoning code.”

Councilman Kevin Flynn, who was one of the two no votes, predicted the version of the group living amendment that passed the council would be tougher to repeal than the original, more far-reaching proposal.

“While I voted no on the final bill, as I stated on the floor, there was much in it that I supported after months of working toward a version that had broader acceptance,” he said. “I would not repeal the entire bill, but that’s not how citizen referendum works.”

At the end of February, five Denver voters filed paperwork with the Denver Clerk and Recorder’s Office to create a petitioning committee for the referendum. The petition would need 9,184 signatures to put the question of repeal before voters on the ballot.

One of the members is George E. Mayl, the former president of Inter-Neighborhood Cooperation, Denver’s coalition of registered neighborhood organizations. However, Mayl’s Facebook page contains myriad inflammatory, vulgar and transphobic posts, including about “illegal” immigrants.

“Double the size of I.C.E. and round up all illegal aliens and ship them SOUTH,” Mayl wrote in January 2020, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“Hey [Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy] Pelosi!! Why don’t we (American citizens) go over why you won’t protect us from illegal, disease, drug carrying illegals streaming into OUR country !!” Mayl posted in 2019.

And that same year, he referred to “illegal, uneducated, disease carrying aliens” in another post.

Council members Torres, Kniech, Sandoval and Gilmore said jointly that they were dismayed but unsurprised by such language.

“Unfortunately, we heard direct anti-immigrant comments last year when going through various community conversations about the group living proposals that were offensive and concerning,” they wrote. “We hope that Denverites seriously consider the expectations and values we have for civil debate and inclusion before signing a petition motivated by these perspectives.”

During the Feb. 8 council meeting, one resident of Montbello commented about a perception that neighbors would use the two-unrelated-adult limit as a tool to report immigrants to the government and lead to their deportation. One person who submitted written comments to the city likewise claimed single-family neighborhoods would be “infiltrated with rental flop houses for illegal immigrants” were the proposal to pass.

Mayl told Colorado Politics that he did post those statements and that he “laugh[s] sometimes at the stuff that I put out. But you know what? It causes conversation.”

While Mayl said he did not seriously believe undocumented immigrants were “disease carrying,” he said it is possible that his views on immigration affected his opposition to the group living proposal.

Mayl added that he is a “strong proponent of the Constitution,” and he would not personally report a household to the city for a violation of the unrelated adult cap if they were “peacefully living and coexisting.”

Florence Seburn, the cofounder of the organized opposition group to the amendment, Safe and Sound Denver, said that zoning is not an immigration issue, and Mayl’s Facebook posts expressed a personal opinion unrelated to the amendment.

“Mr. Mayl is retired military. In my experience, those who have pledged their sacred honor and put themselves in harm’s way for this country often see things differently than those who haven’t,” Seburn said.

Those who supported the group living amendment spoke at the council meeting of the need to end exclusionary zoning provisions and promote housing affordability. While opponents defended the need to protect their largest investment — their homes — the city’s Department of Planning and Development concluded the measure would advance racial, ethnic and socioeconomic diversity.

The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless endorsed the measure, and chief communications and public policy officer Cathy Alderman said on Monday that the referendum on the group living amendment seemed to fly in the face of equity.

“Unfortunately, many people in the group that oppose the changes seem to have embraced a ‘not in my backyard’ and fear-based attitude against making Denver more accessible, affordable and equitable to all of its residents,” she said. “I don’t think this approach is productive or fair and it really lends itself to a dangerous system of divisiveness between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ and the ‘I’ve got mine and don’t need to worry about you’ mentality.”