City Council Considers Stricter Residency Restrictions for Sex Offenders
Debates Challenges Balancing Public Safety, Housing Regulations, and Rehabilitation Efforts
The Longmont City Council is considering a new sex offender residency ordinance following concerns raised by residents on February 25, 2025, during a city council meeting about a group home housing registered sex offenders in the vicinity of a school and park.
The discussion, which took place at the March 4 city council meeting, brought to light the challenges of balancing public safety, housing regulations, and rehabilitation efforts.
During the meeting, City Manager Harold Dominguez acknowledged that the council was unaware that a group home was housing registered sex offenders until residents raised concerns.
“Did we know about this home through the permitting process? The answer to that is no,” Dominguez stated. “The permit did not indicate the use of this home, which is going to be important as we talk about the operational piece of this.”
Dominguez further explained that while the city can enforce building and fire codes, state law exempts certain group homes—such as those for individuals with intellectual disabilities or recovering from substance abuse—from local zoning regulations. However, it remains unclear whether a home housing both recovering addicts and sex offenders falls under these exemptions.
City Council members debated the need for a local ordinance regulating sex offender residency during a zero reading (an initial discussion stage before a formal first reading), considering its potential impact on both public safety and housing accessibility.
Public Safety Chief Zach Ardis provided an overview of sex offense classifications in Colorado, noting that misdemeanor and felony offenses can both result in a Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) designation if the offender is deemed likely to reoffend.
Ardis presented a potential framework for a new residency restriction ordinance in Longmont, which could include:
1,000-foot restrictions from schools, parks, recreation centers, swimming pools, and childcare facilities.
500-foot restrictions from public trails, open spaces, and other public lands.
Grandfathering in current registrants—meaning sex offenders already living in Longmont would not have to move but would be restricted if they relocated.
“Approximately 30 states have some sort of distance-based residency restriction concerning sex offenders,” explained Jeremy Terrell, assistant city attorney. “Colorado does not have a statewide requirement, though approximately 35 local jurisdictions have some form of residency restriction concerning registered sex offenders.”
Terrell further outlined that some jurisdictions, such as Boulder, Erie, Golden, Centennial, and Loveland, do not have local residency restrictions. However, other cities—including Northglenn, Westminster, Firestone, and Greeley—have various degrees of residency limitations for sex offenders.
Terrell provided a detailed breakdown of how different Colorado cities regulate sex offender residency:
Northglenn: Restricts SVPs, registered felons, and offenders with multiple victims. They must remain 1,000 feet from schools and 500 feet from parks, daycares, playgrounds, pools, and school bus stops.
Westminster: Only applies to SVPs with a 1,000-foot restriction from schools, parks, and recreation centers and a 500-foot restriction from public trails.
Firestone: Imposes restrictions on all registered sex offenders, including those with misdemeanor offenses. They must remain 1,000 feet from schools, daycares, school bus stops, parks, trails, pools, and open spaces.
Greeley: Applies restrictions only if the victim was under 18 years old, including SVPs, felons, and repeat offenders. Their buffer zone is 300 feet from schools, parks, and recreation centers.
Broomfield and Littleton: Limit the number of sex offenders per residence—only one offender per dwelling unit, including group homes.
Commerce City: Restricts all registrants from living within 1,000 feet of parks, playgrounds, schools, ball fields, and daycare facilities, with additional restrictions for Sexually Violent Predators.
Longmont’s draft ordinance, which was presented at the meeting, was modeled after Northglenn and Westminster’s policies.
“If City Council wants to go more restrictive, we can certainly pursue that,” Terrell said. “But we wanted to start with a more restrictive version and then discuss whether to scale it down—to have less setbacks, less applicability, less places we’re considering for restrictions, kind of that nature.”
Councilor Diane Crist sought clarification on whether the ordinance would apply retroactively to current residents.
Terrell confirmed that current sex offenders living in Longmont would not have to move.
“The ordinance itself would only apply going forward,” Terrell said.
Crist then raised the issue of whether youth centers should be explicitly included in the restricted zones.
Terrell acknowledged the ambiguity, suggesting that the council could expand the restricted area list.
“We can certainly specify additional locations or define certain facilities,” Terrell said. “Right now, the ordinance includes daycare facilities, recreation centers, and schools.”
The discussion revealed the tension between public safety concerns and the ability of offenders to find housing. Some council members expressed concern that stricter residency laws could push sex offenders into homelessness, making them harder to monitor.
Others worried about the proximity of offenders to schools and parks, especially if housed in group settings. The next steps include reviewing additional legal and logistical details, mapping potential residency restrictions, and determining whether an ordinance is necessary.
Ward 3 Representative/Mayor Pro Tem Susie Hidalgo-Fahring expressed her support for moving forward, particularly with restrictions on sex offenders living near schools.
“I do want to move forward with some kind of ordinance that puts parameters around sex offenders living—especially around schools,” Hidalgo-Fahring said. “I liked the idea of having an under 18 because there are sex offenders, the crime that they committed was not against a child.”
Hidalgo-Fahring also raised a critical question regarding group homes that house both sex offenders and individuals in substance abuse recovery, asking whether the ordinance would apply in those situations.
Terrell confirmed that the ordinance would apply to such homes moving forward.
“If any future recovery home is protected otherwise under state law, it would still have to meet our sex offender distance requirement if we had one in effect,” Terrell explained. “There’s not a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card.”
Hidalgo-Fahring pressed further, asking whether sex offenders could cycle in and out of a group home, effectively skirting the restrictions.
Dominguez clarified that the act of moving into a group home as a sex offender after an ordinance was enacted would be a violation.
“Coming back in as a sex offender would still be criminalized under a distance-based ordinance. It’s not like there’s a grandfathered-in space, I hate to say, sex offender space put aside,” Terrell said.
Hidalgo-Fahring also questioned whether group homes are meant to be long-term residences or if people move in and out frequently.
Terrell explained that while some group homes—particularly for mental health or intellectual disabilities—could be long-term, drug recovery programs could last multiple years.
When asked whether sex offenders required a specific type of group home, Terrell clarified that no such designated homes exist under state law. However, co-occurring issues like substance abuse or mental health disorders often lead to sex offenders living in protected group homes for other conditions.
To provide more insight, Human Services Director Christina Pacheco addressed how sex offender rehabilitation typically functions.
“Therapy for people who have committed a sex offense usually happens in a group setting,” Pacheco said. “I suppose that could be in a residential setting, but the treatment phase can last up to two and a half years, so it’s quite rigorous and can occur in prison, jail, or post-plea settings.”
Ward 2 Representative Matthew Popkin shifted the conversation to data, asking whether the city had statistics on sex offenders currently living in Longmont and their rates of reoffending.
Ardis provided key statistics:
286 registered sex offenders live in Longmont.
5 of them are designated as SVPs.
202 of the 286 are considered “web-eligible” offenders—meaning their information is posted on the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) database.
181 offenders have felony convictions and fixed residences.
105 offenders have misdemeanor charges.
18 of the 181 felony offenders are repeat offenders, meaning they have multiple sex offenses on record.
Ardis added that the city conducts routine checkups on registered sex offenders to ensure they remain compliant with residency and registration requirements.
“We get a list and go out to do random checks,” Ardis said. “Officers verify that they are living at their registered address and complying with legal requirements.”
Ardis also noted that many sex offenders already live in shared housing situations in Longmont, but that calls for service at those residences remain low.
“We have several locations in the city where multiple offenders live together,” Ardis said. “When I pulled that, our calls for service were relatively low. Other than the fact that we do regular sex offender registry checkups, meaning officers go out and verify that there’s still the address and those types of things.”
Popkin raised the question of whether any licensing requirements exist in Colorado for group homes that house multiple registered sex offenders.
Dominguez responded that Colorado does not have a specific licensing structure for sex offender group homes, though some other types of group homes—such as those for substance abuse recovery—require state registration.
“There’s not a statewide, specific registration or licensing for homes related to sexual offenses,” Dominguez clarified.
Popkin then suggested the city explore whether implementing a licensing structure for group homes that house registered sex offenders might provide additional oversight.
While supporting the intent of residency restrictions, Popkin also cautioned against over-regulating housing options, which could lead to pockets or enclaves of sex offenders forming in the few areas where they are still allowed to live.
At-Large Representative Aren Rodriguez echoed this concern, emphasizing the need for detailed mapping before finalizing any distance-based restrictions.
“When we looked at ordinances from other communities, I always like to be a little bit more surgical and not just swinging an ax at a problem,” Rodriguez said. “Overlay maps are very important to me when it comes to determining what restrictions, from a distance perspective, look like.”
Rodriguez pointed to Greeley’s model, which focuses restrictions only on offenders whose crimes involved minors, as a potentially more targeted approach.
Mayor Joan Peck shifted the discussion to whether parole and probation requirements already impose restrictions on where offenders can live—and if the city’s proposed ordinance might be redundant.
Terrell confirmed that Colorado’s Sex Offender Management Board prohibits offenders from having contact with children while in treatment or under probation/parole supervision.
Pacheco clarified that these restrictions only apply while an individual is still under supervision.
“There is a process that offenders have to go through. There is a restriction to be around any children, and then there is a process that they need to go through to be able to even visit with their own children, even if the offense wasn’t committed toward the children,” Pacheco said.
Ardis added that while parole and probation may restrict who an offender can live with, those rules end once the individual is fully released.
“It’s only during that probation and parole period those those rules apply once that individual completes their sentence, meaning time in jail, in parole or probation. They’re then released back to the public, and there are no restrictions for that individual other than what’s required by the state, which is to register with your local agency,” Ardis explained.
Peck asked for clarification on the duration of sex offender registration.
“Registration is for life, correct?” Peck asked.
“Yes,” Ardis replied. “There are, there are options and abilities that once you become a sex offender you can petition courts to be taken off of it, but for all intents and purposes, unless you petition the court, you are required to register for the rest, pretty much the rest of your life.”
Moving forward, Dominguez emphasized the importance of establishing clear parameters before maps can be generated to show how residency restrictions would shape housing availability in Longmont.
Dominguez added that determining which locations will be included in the restrictions—such as schools, parks, playgrounds, and public trails—will significantly alter the available housing zones for sex offenders.
“I like the Greeley model for the reasons Councilor Rodriguez mentioned, but I also like Westminster’s as far as distance goes,” Peck said.
A major concern among council members was the risk of creating concentrated areas where sex offenders would be forced to live due to overly restrictive zoning. Rodriguez stressed the importance of reviewing overlay maps before finalizing distance restrictions to prevent such clustering.
Hidalgo-Fahring suggested incorporating Greeley’s approach, which targets offenders whose victims were minors, rather than applying blanket restrictions. She also recommended simplifying the ordinance’s distance structure.
“Looking at the draft ordinance, I would really like to focus on 1,000-foot restrictions around schools, parks, playgrounds, and childcare centers,” Hidalgo-Fahring added.
Popkin agreed and requested multiple overlay maps—one including parks and one without them—to see how the restrictions impact housing availability.
“We have a lot of parks in the city, and I would hate for that to create an unintended consequence of forcing those pockets and enclaves,” Popkin said. “I'd love to see one with and without, so we understand our options there.”
Popkin also questioned whether specific distance numbers—such as 1,000 feet or 500 feet—were based on scientific data or simply arbitrary figures.
Terrell responded that there is no definitive research proving that residency restrictions reduce recidivism.
“To my knowledge, these numbers are arbitrary,” Terrell admitted. “The Colorado Sex Offender Management Board found that distance restrictions have no impact on recidivism. However, we’ve seen an increase in jurisdictions adopting these measures… the last five years a lot of jurisdictions adopting distance requirements.”
Dominguez confirmed that staff will generate multiple maps based on the council’s requested distance and location parameters.
As the discussion wrapped up, Peck emphasized that the council needed time to process the information before deciding on the ordinance’s final structure.
Council members agreed to continue evaluating options and gather additional data before moving forward with a first reading of the ordinance. The council is expected to revisit the issue in future sessions, with potential public hearings before a formal vote on any new ordinance.