Opinion: Should Hogan-Pancost be annexed?


I was at REI last weekend and ran into an old friend, Jeff McWhirter, who is the president of the South East Boulder Neighborhood Association. We got into a long discussion about the possible annexation and development of the Hogan-Pancost property. It’s about 22 acres, off 55th south of Baseline just south of the East Boulder Community Center, and perhaps the last significant piece of undeveloped land Boulder can annex without going into Area III of the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan.
The land is so fraught with problems that this process has been going on (and off) for about 17 years. The current proposal is for 120-plus units, part senior housing, some “affordable” units, and over 60 market rate houses. The issues specific to the site include lack of easy access to shopping and services, poor transit, and, more significantly, serious flooding potential, high ground water and threatened species.
Unfortunately the data on these big issues is not the best. Current flood studies are based on Federal data associated with a storm near Eldorado Springs, but a more local storm could up the flow numbers considerably. And climate change is expected to bring more extreme weather, potentially raising the hazard even more. As to groundwater, one neighbor pumped a million gallons out of his basement sump last year. The habitat studies for the Preble’s jumping mouse are apparently contradictory: One study says, “There is no riparian habitat on the Hogan/Pancost property or stands of willow or other mesic shrub.” But another says, “The wetland vegetation along the (Dry Creek) ditch is comprised of a mosaic of wetland graminoids and forbs… Riparian shrubs and trees occur along portions of the ditch and include plains cottonwood, crack willow, sandbar willow.”
Transportation issues are also confused. Housing advocates claim that more housing will eliminate some of the 50-60,000 in-commuters, but there is no actual study showing that the increased local trips won’t overwhelm any benefit. Also, some of the potential employees who move here could work in Denver or Interlocken, totally negating any conceivable benefit. Although these big issues are not satisfactorily resolved, time is now being spent on design (e.g., detached versus attached sidewalks), which should really wait until the fundamentals are fully vetted.
This process matches what I first heard decades ago from Vic Fruehauf, a local businessman, which went something like, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any path will do.” There is no agreement on how much or what kind of development Boulder wants. And there is an equal lack of clarity about what tradeoffs we are willing to make. With some rumblings about actually abandoning the Comprehensive Plan (one of the nationally recognized cornerstones of Boulder’s land use policies), and a lot of interest on council in opening up the 500-acre Area III Planning Reserve for unknown development, avoiding big mistakes is now front-and-center.
The Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan, with its four-body review of major land use decisions, has guided and contained development. It also is the real protection for our open space. Without this, even if the county commissioners or county planning commission disagrees, any land in the Boulder Valley, including open space, could be annexed and developed by majority votes on the council and a city board.
Jeff made a very good suggestion. Because of the large scale, complexity, and interlocking nature of the issues, the city should assemble a community review board to look at big picture land use decisions. It could include board members from the planning, open space, water resources, transportation, environment, etc. Their job would be to do a public, in-depth multi-dimensional evaluation of any annexation or major change in land use, as well as look at the long-term effects of current policy. Such an integrated approach has been missing since the Integrated Planning Process of the ’90s.
I also have a suggestion. Rather than letting these critical growth decisions be made by whoever happens to be the majority on council and some board, let’s have a charter amendment to require citizen approval of any annexation from Area III. This would give the residents of Boulder the final say, and help ensure that the council considers what the citizens really want, rather than having a handful of people determine our future. Hogan-Pancost is a good laboratory to test out these ideas — it’s time to get started!


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