Opinion: What might still be


Last Sunday`s Daily Camera lead story discussed many of the cutting edge initiatives that Boulder citizens have taken over more than half a century to protect the quality of life in Boulder from “What might have been.” These include the Blue Line that restricts water delivery and thus development to below 5,750 feet, the Open Space program that protects sensitive habitat, the 55 foot height limit that protects our views, the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan that limits most development to within the city limits, and so on.
Because of these efforts, Boulder is a very desirable place to live. And the inevitable effect of this is that the price of land, housing, and commercial property is higher than in less desirable places.
The pressure on housing prices is further amplified by the presence of the University of Colorado, whose growth is, to some extent, driven by the internal economic benefits of an expanding research agenda with the attendant desire to house even more students, teachers and researchers here in Boulder. This is on top of decisions made in the past to zone much of Boulder`s land for commercial/industrial development, which already puts enormous pressure on the housing market.
Adding to all this is the human service agenda to make living in Boulder available to people of all income levels, and the additional quasi-environmental agenda to have all those who work in Boulder live in Boulder to reduce the 60,000-plus in-commuting numbers.
Unfortunately, there is an essential conflict between all these forces and the quality of life that makes Boulder so wonderful. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but let`s be clear from the start: (1) adding housing will not make Boulder more affordable in the long run unless it also makes Boulder a lot less desirable; and (2) trying to jam 60,000 more employees and their families into Boulder will totally overload every facility from roads to recreation centers. And obviously, continuing to add jobs will increase the pressure on housing prices even further, and make the in-commuting traffic even worse.
We need to recognize that Boulder can`t be everything for everyone. We also need to acknowledge that our future is not going to be like our past, when we could absorb the impacts of more and more development without significantly expanding the capacities of our existing systems. For example, although the experts tell us that our water resources are capable of handling expected growth even under most global warming scenarios, do we really want to go right to that edge? Wouldn`t it be better to keep a significant amount in reserve, for example, to keep our streams flowing or for local agriculture?
Our transportation system is already running close to capacity, and projected growth will gridlock our streets. But our current plans provide no really effective ways to reduce or even limit in-commuting vehicle trips. The Transportation Department`s request to impose a fee on all properties might raise some money, but does nothing to discourage people from driving their individual cars. Simply putting meters on all city streets where commuters park, and requiring (or encouraging) meters or ticket machines in private lots would do a huge amount to reduce single occupant car in-commuting. Of course, some will complain, but doesn`t it make more sense to charge those who are creating the impact rather than everyone indiscriminately?
The City Council took a tentative first step toward greening up our energy supply by requiring all pot-growers to go “net-zero” in their electricity use. Fine, but what about making that a requirement for all new development? It can be done technically and economically, so why not make it the rule? And while we`re at it, make new development be “net-zero” for traffic generation also. Requiring new development to pay to offset the trips that even the best-planned projects generate would keep Boulder nice for the rest of us that aren`t profiting from the development game.
There are lots of other areas to focus on — getting every school to the level that Boulder`s highly educated population deserves, making all buildings as energy efficient as possible, imposing impact fees for parks, recreation and libraries that actually maintain current levels of service, going mostly renewable for our power supply, and so on. Then we might be able to look back in another 50 years and still be pleased about “what might have happened but didn`t.”

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