Opinion: Unsustainable development and its effects


In Wednesday`s Daily Camera, we were all put on notice that the time it takes Boulder`s fire and emergency vehicles to respond is falling further and further behind both our own and national standards. Only the day before, many of us received e-mails from the city`s planning department inviting us to a workshop to discuss “sustainable growth and development” as part of the five-year update to the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan (BVCP).
It doesn`t take a rocket scientist to see that past growth and resulting traffic increases have led to these slower emergency response times. And that given the amount of expected future growth (13,000 more residents and 60,000 more jobs to “reasonable buildout”) and the failure of the city to require that growth pay its own way, the notion of “sustainable growth and development” is an oxymoron. If this growth is pursued, our future is rather grim, with emergency response time being just one of many sacrifices.
The response time problem is simple to understand: Since Boulder`s first attempt to do long-range planning for transportation improvements with the Transportation Master Plan about two decades ago, there has been continued resistance by the majority of city council members to implement the level of impact fees and development excise taxes required to prevent significant increases in traffic congestion. Boulder has provided sufficient bike paths and buses (through RTD) to allow current residents to not increase their driving. But traffic from new development has increased congestion, not just on major arterials but also on neighborhood streets as people try to avoid the congested arterials. This is the cause of the emergency response time problem.
The BVCP has a policy that should have ensured that this situation did not occur. Policy 3.05 states, “Growth will be expected to pay its own way, with the requirement that new development pay the cost of providing needed facilities and an equitable share of services including affordable housing, and to mitigate negative impacts such as those to the transportation system.” And the more recent Policy 1.03(d) provides what should be the standard for sustainability, ” The city and county will seek to ensure that current needs are met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” But BVCP policies are selectively applied in city processes and not even brought up unless they support a particular agenda.
It`s worth understanding why these policies are not strictly enforced. The BVCP is an agreement between the City Council and the County Commissioners, not an agreement between the council and the citizens. So, unless the city violates some state law, it can ignore the BVCP`s provisions, except when the city`s actions tweak the commissioners to the point where they react. As an example, in 2005, that council blatantly violated the BVCP`s procedures by trying to “keep open” the 5-year update to allow the council to consider annexing a site for a big-box store at some future date. The BVCP clearly states that this is not an option. But the county commissioners, who could have enforced the BVCP, were notoriously silent.
Back to the oxymoronic “sustainable growth and development” notion: Let`s be clear — more density with more people creates more demands for services. Unfortunately, for many government services, there are dis-economies of scale — per capita costs increase as the community grows, with emergency response time being a case in point. This generally holds true for transportation, parking, water, social services, and so on. Worse, the capital facilities required cannot be funded by general taxes, which get used up just paying for ongoing services. (Although not a proof, we all have noticed that cities do not lower taxes as they grow, they generally raise them.) This is not to say that sprawl is better — it isn`t — but it is foolish to think that adding people is somehow going to improve the situation.
The City Council would do well to require that city staff re-focus the BVCP update discussion on whether more growth and development is sustainable under any reasonable definition of that term. This is the conversation that the community wants and needs, not one about where the development “deck chairs” will be added or how they will be arranged.

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