The redevelopment of the former Westminster Mall has been billed as an opportunity to redefine suburban America. A piece of that renewal attacks a growing problem across the Denver metro area: the scarcity of affordable housing.

To that end, at least 118 apartments at the heart of the marquee site will be open to people making anywhere from 30 to 60 percent of the area median income.

They will be among more than 600 affordable housing units in Westminster that have been proposed, are planned or are under construction — other suburban communities are making similar efforts — as home values and rental prices continue to spike in Denver.

“Westminster is being very forward-thinking — advancing workforce and affordable housing has been a high priority for the City Council,” said Jenni Grafton, senior economic development officer for Westminster. “But while it’s important that every municipality takes action at the local level, we have to take a regional approach to the problem.”

While much of the focus of affordable housing conversation has been on Denver — the city established a 10-year, $150 million affordable housing fund — the issue is widespread. According to the Colorado Division of Housing, more than 272,000 low-income Coloradans are spending more than half their income on housing. And more than $102 million in state funding has gone into developing affordable housing since 2010.

Adams County has become a magnet for many young families priced out of Denver, according to recent U.S. Census Bureau data. In October, Commerce City announced the groundbreaking of a 216-unit affordable housing project, dubbed North Range Crossings, which will be open to tenants making $33,660 a year — or 60 percent of the area median income. The City Council approved incentives to the developer in the form of waived fees and tax breaks.

In Lakewood, the 40 West Residences opened its 60 affordable units in October, with 25 of those homes reserved for homeless veterans.

Other suburban cities are taking different approaches to addressing the metro area’s housing crunch. Englewood has been studying the idea of allowing accessory dwelling units — mother-in-law-style apartments or backyard garden cottages — to serve as compact homes for people. Castle Rock leaders on Tuesday will vote on a first reading of an ordinance allowing ADUs to be built in the Douglas County town.

In Golden, city leaders recently approved a new set of “community housing policies” as part of its updated comprehensive plan that commits the city to using its resources to ensure that 30 percent of its total housing stock is affordable to households making up to 80 percent of area median income.

But achieving affordable housing goals like the ones Golden outlined last month can be a tall order, given the high costs of land and construction. Diana Elliott, a senior research associate for the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Institute, said cities and counties that own real estate have a distinct advantage in negotiating deals with the private sector and guiding projects so that affordable housing is encouraged and well planned.

“If the city owns land presently, hold on to that for the future,” said Elliott, who co-authored a May 2017 report on the state of affordable housing in Denver. “It’s the cost of land that is really the big expense.”

In the case of downtown Westminster, where the Westminster Mall sat before it was torn down in 2011, the city’s urban renewal authority owns the land. That has proven critical to pursuing the ambitious goal of making 20 percent of the 2,300 or so residential units that will eventually be located on the sprawling property fall in the affordable range, said Sarah Nurmela, the city’s real estate development manager for the project.

“Having land control allows us to better negotiate getting affordable housing in there,” she said. “This is our downtown, and it should represent who we are. We highly value equity and inclusivity and think it should be part of our vision for the next big urban center in the Front Range.”

Grafton, the city’s economic development officer, said holding that kind of leverage makes it easier for cities to approach developers with a carrot-over-stick approach. Instead of mandating that a certain number of units be affordable as part of any given project, the city can fold those goals into the land acquisition process so that the lower-priced units can be factored into the economics of the overall deal from the start.

The city passed a financial agreement last month that will have Westminster providing the developer, Eaton Housing LLC, more than $5 million in loans, land and forgiveness of building fees as part of an incentive package.

“We don’t want to make this punitive — we want to use incentives,” Grafton said.

Westminster also has the advantage of building affordable housing on a site where there are no homes at present. That lessens the “not in my backyard” sentiment that can so often doom these types of projects, said Craig Maraschky, executive director of the Aurora Housing Authority.

Even so, being honest and open with nearby residents is critical to getting buy-in from the community, he said.

“It’s important to meet with the neighbors early and often,” Maraschky said.

Hand in hand with open communication, he said, is making sure affordable housing is built to a standard where it’s hard to distinguish it from a new market-rate apartment complex.

“The buildings we build, I challenge you to say they are affordable housing,” Maraschky said.

The Aurora Housing Authority, which owns 800 units across 16 buildings in the city, just embarked on the third and final chapter of the Village at Westerly Creek affordable housing project in August. Phase three will add 74 units and expand access to the complex beyond senior households to include families with children.

The Village at Westerly Creek project is a revamp of what was once called the Buckingham Gardens public housing complex, which the authority first purchased nearly 40 years ago. Maraschky calls the redevelopment effort a reinvention of an aging property.

“Through good design and good management, we want to be good neighbors,” he said.

Heidi Aggeler, managing partner with Denver-based BBC Research & Consulting, worked with Westminster on its affordable housing strategy. In putting together its housing needs assessment, she said, the city found that people really wanted to stay in the city. As part of that assessment, Aggeler said Westminster made a concerted effort to pay attention to the possibility that gentrification in the southern part of the city could drive out longtime residents.

“Westminster taking that and turning it into a strategy is very unique,” she said.