YIMBY News for 3/16

[Eric Budd]

Four education bills we’re keeping an eye on as Colorado legislature reaches halfway point

Colorado Sun

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KEYWORD SCORE: 27.03. affordable, affordable housing, construction, growth, house, housing, housing cost, income, project, rent, transportation

Colorado students and teachers get a lot of airtime inside the state Capitol every year as lawmakers dream up and debate policies they believe will give schools a stronger footing to catapult kids toward graduation. Here are four education bills we are tracking as the second half of the 2026 legislative session gets underway: Affordable housing for teachers Staffing classrooms has become a challenge shared by more districts across Colorado as housing costs have priced educators out of many of the communities where they teach. State Democrats want to have a hand in fixing the lack of affordable

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Tucson’s Safe City Initiative Aims To Link People to Help. Arrests Still Drive the Strategy.

Next City

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KEYWORD SCORE: 23.22. bus stop, house, housing, parking, parking lot, transportation, urban, walk

Tucson Police officers arrest five people for trespassing and possession of drug paraphernalia during a safe city deployment on Feb. 25, 2026. (Photo by Carolina Cuellar / Arizona Luminaria) *This story was originally published by Arizona Luminaria.* Officer Frank Oviedo pulled up next to the parking lot of a Speedy Cash on the corner of Grant and Alvernon in Tucson, Arizona. Five people sat cross-legged on the asphalt, the youngest crying as officers asked basic questions and wrote their names on white notepads. “You’re driving around looking for instances where people can be contacted, like

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Bed Bath & Begone: Demolition begins for major Cherry Creek project

Denverite

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KEYWORD SCORE: 20.66. construction, development, housing, income, mixed-use, parking, parking garage, parking lot, project, rent

For years, a sign at University Boulevard and East First Avenue has promised that “something exciting is coming” to Cherry Creek West. Now, as bulldozers and backhoes converge on the former site of Cherry Creek’s Bed Bath & Beyond, it appears the thing is happening. Currently, the 13-acre plot of land is home to several freestanding buildings and vacant parking lots, a stark contrast to the dense and bustling blocks surrounding it. Developers plan to raze those buildings and build hundreds of thousands of square feet of housing, offices and retail space. Fencing lines the block at Cherry Creek

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Pierce County May Join Neighbors in Blocking Federal Detention Center Expansion

The Urbanist

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KEYWORD SCORE: 19.09. house, rent, transportation, urban, zoning

[image: Pierce County May Join Neighbors in Blocking Federal Detention Center Expansion] On March 3, the King County Council passed Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda’s emergency one-year moratorium blocking permits to expand or create new detention facilities within unincorporated King County, whether for permanent or temporary use, to prevent the siting of potential Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers. Mosqueda’s measure comes as news of the federal government exploring siting yet another facility in the Pacific Northwest hit the internet and airwaves. While King County ac

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Wastewater Will Cool This Memphis Data Center

Governing

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KEYWORD SCORE: 18.75. construction, house, project, rent, supply

In Brief: An enormous quantity of water is needed to prevent servers in data centers from overheating. A Memphis xAI facility, which builds Grok, is located near a wastewater treatment plant. The data center will use water from the plant instead of drinking water. It’s a strategy that has been used elsewhere, one that could help other communities preserve supplies needed by residents. A sudden influx of 10,000 new households drawing on the water supply is the stuff of nightmares for a local water utility. That’s more or less what happened to Memphis in 2024 when xAI built Colossus, a supercomp

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