A Boulder citizens’ group managed to gather more than 9,000 signatures in just 18 days to stop the rezoning of some land to allow high-density mixed-use development. Under the law, the Boulder city council must either reverse the rezoning or allow the entire city to vote on it.
Boulder residents march together to present their petition to city hall.
The land at issue is a former elementary school, which was closed due to the declining number of school children in Boulder — no doubt because most families with children can’t afford to live there. According to this news story (written before all the signatures were gathered), the rezoning moved the boundary between an existing high-density zone and a low-density zone by 48 feet, so that more of the former school site is zoned for high densities. The city also reduced parking requirements, leading residents to fear that people will park in their neighborhood.
Now, I have to wonder: is this a good thing or a bad thing? I would certainly support the neighborhood residents if the city were rezoning their property for higher densities. But moving a boundary by 48 feet so that someone else’s property can have a little more density may be different.
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It is likely that none of this would be an issue at all were it not for Boulder’s unusual land-use planning system. First, the city and county of Boulder have purchased a greenbelt around the city that covers at least eight times the land area of the city itself. This greenbelt effectively forms an urban-growth boundary. Second, for about three decades, Boulder has slowed growth by limiting the number of home building permits issued each year to 2 percent of the existing number of residences.
The result of these policies is that Boulder has some of the most, if not the most, expensive housing of any U.S. urban area that is not in a coastal state. By now, most of the buildable land in the city must already be developed, so developers naturally will want to put higher densities on the remaining land (such as a former school site).
You can have affordable housing or you can curb sprawl. If you curb sprawl, you can partly mitigate the unaffordable housing by allowing higher densities. But, unless you have so destroyed your economy in some other way that no one wants to live there, you can’t have low densities, greenbelts, and affordable housing all at the same time.
The real solution for these neighbors is to get rid of the greenbelt. This would take away the demand for high-density housing. Some of them understand this, but the average Boulder resident still strongly supports the greenbelt.
So they engage in ballot-box zoning, which will only make Boulder housing even more expensive. Many homeowners may not care since it merely increases the value of their houses. The irony, of course, is that Boulder, which is proud of being a “progressive” city, has adopted such regressive policies that no one with low- to moderate-incomes can afford to buy a home there.
The irony, of course, is that Boulder, which is proud of being a “progressive†city, has adopted such regressive policies that no one with low- to moderate-incomes can afford to buy a home there.
JK: Maybe that is the goal: keep the low income riff-raff out. And the racial minorities.
Long Live Racism!!!
Thanks
JK
Let us note that the electeds made the change, not the planning staff. Nonetheless,
With increasing human population, what is likely to happen next if the greenbelt that folks wanted is built upon**: folks will build on the greenbelt, then ask the electeds to zone so that their property values are maintained. This will drive up prices (as Glaeser notes) and the affordable housing issue won’t be fixed.
DS
** chronicled by the researcher that Randal likes to quote so much, Glaeser.
No Density for Rock Creek!
40-acre parcels! Why, that’s too dense! Sacre bleu!
DS
The lowering of parking requirements was in fact made by the Planning Board. The change in zoning was recommended by the Planning Board. This development was spurred by smart growth agenda to infill urban open space. The city is in the conflicted position of having promised pocket parks throughout Boulder, while taking parks for development, as this would have done. The development would have towered over the surrounding area in the hope that a few more people would have been seen waiting at bus stops.
I’m always fascinated by the argumentation used by certain groups trying to obtain an outcome.
I wonder if the neighbors, petition signers & commenters here would pay the $4M to keep the school property as is, as so many at these ideological sites would have people do to stop private development elsewhere (and has been done in the Bay Area, yet we rail on about that here endlessly). Or maybe we can raise everyone’s property taxes in Boulder to purchase the property and tear down/maintain the existing structure that towers over the area. Otherwise, the school district can sell the property to a developer who perhaps won’t build green buildings and have lesser design standards.
And I like it that we have Randal proposing to develop in open space to cause a crrrrash in housing prices (right?), yet here is a citizen wanting to _preserve_ open space from development. This preservation that folks desire, of course, drives up housing prices.
An aside, but relevant: I see that WA state wants to keep the 1% lid on property tax increases, which is less than inflation. This sort of fiscal starvation seen across the country will result in even more of these compact developments on infill, as the long-term maintenance is much cheaper than extending infrastructure far out into greenfields. Ah, progress!
DS
That’s what I love about Boulder. They claim they’re trying to reduce sprawl but when it comes to allowing for more homes to be closer to the old core, they don’t allow for it. So you don’t want sprawl but you don’t want more people closer to you? It’s knee-jerk NIMBYism at work. Isn’t that just lovely?
In the meantime things will continue on as they have with extra sprawl with folks that very well may have otherwise lived in Boulder living in booming Front Range communities like Longmont, Lafayette, Broomfield, Niwot and even Loveland and Windsor. And they’re doing that not only because of housing prices but because the same impediments Boulder creates that affect housing affect businesses. Why live in Boulder if you’re just going to have to work in placed like Westminster or Niwot or Longmont or Denver?
Good for the residents of Boulder! They’ve done an excellent job of maintaining a good quality of life there which is more than I can say for either so-called “smart growth” model cities or ones that have been ruined by allowing “free market” forces (i.e., greed) to determine their urban destiny.