Steve Pomerance

In the last week or so, a number of Boulder council members have started asking about a group of advisors to the city planning and development services center (P&DS). I’m not talking about the planning board, which has been in the news lately for asking some tough questions about the costs and benefits of the huge Google building at 30th and Pearl. I’m not talking about the landmarks board, which raised some issues about the activities of some property owners on Mapleton Hill. No, I’m talking about the “P&DS advisors.” Never heard of this group? Well, neither had I until last week. According to an email from city staff, “P&DS Advisors are a customer/stakeholder group that is convened by staff on a quarterly basis. This group provides feedback to the P&DS management team about the development review, technical document, building permit and inspection processes. Discussions provide opportunities for customers to offer suggestions about business-process improvements an...

I was struck recently by the marked contrast between the process around municipalization of our electric utility, and those for the “Comprehensive Housing Strategy” (CHS) and Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan (BVCP) five-year update. The process for deciding whether to create a clean energy-based municipal utility has provided citizens multiple opportunities to vote on pursuing it, as well as ensuring citizens that there are real constraints on its implementation. The 2010 ballot substituted an occupation tax for the franchise fee, removing the commitment to Xcel. In 2011, one ballot issue provided funding to pursue municipalization studies, and the other allowed creation of the muni, but with strong charter constraints. The 2013 city ballot item set limits on the most significant portions of the utility’s debt; the 2013 Xcel-sponsored ballot item would have effectively killed the process. The 2011 constraints provided significant protections for citizens and businesses from a co...

Behind the scenes in the Boulder city government, arguments are being made that open space land, and by implication parks land, can be transferred to another city department without going through the city charter-required processes. Right now, only a few non-controversial bike paths are being considered. But if the council allows the charter to be ignored, much of our public land would be threatened. Open space lands are protected by Charter Section 177, passed by Boulder voters in 1986. It requires both the city council and the Open Space Board of Trustees (OSBT) approval for any “disposal” of open space; it also requires a 60-day waiting period so that citizens who don’t agree have ample time to refer these decisions to the ballot. The charter states, “This section is to be construed liberally in favor of providing opportunities for the citizens of the city to refer measures proposing the disposal of any open space land.” The parks board also has veto power over the disposal of p...

I am writing this to correct some of the apparent inaccuracies put forward at the 10/14 CC/PB study session about charging growth for its costs. I do not claim to be an expert in the field, but I have studied it long enough and consulted with enough supposed experts and legal types to understand most of the basics. In addition, I have found that the experts don’t necessarily know everything and won’t necessarily put forward the most appropriate solutions. The fundamental rule, both legal and equitable, is that growth should pay to address its impacts so as to maintain existing levels of service (LOS) for existing residents and businesses. But growth cannot be required to improve levels of service. LOS is measured in all sorts of ways depending on the facility and/or service being measured. For transportation, it could be total VMT, travel time, intersection waits, access to transit, etc. For schools, it might be square footage per pupil, etc. For water, it could be water righ...

Sept. 17 was a great day. At 5 a.m. my climbing partner and I left Boulder to climb Navajo Peak via Niwot Ridge. After some hours of hiking, we started on a mile long section of rock scrambling along the steep, exposed ridge. The route finding was complex, and the views toward the Boulder watershed, the plains, and the Continental Divide were great. Conditions were perfect — sunny, warm, and not too windy. Some hours later, we finished by descending Airplane Gully, passing wreckage from a post-World War II small plane crash. We then hiked out, also beautiful, but more hours on top of an already long day. We got to the car tired and thirsty, but satisfied and no blisters. This wonderful day followed a not-so-good Tuesday evening at the City Council meeting, which started with a study session on growth and development. Many of council members’ initial comments were seemingly directed at convincing those who came to ask for action on controlling growth that there was no problem. Accor...

The good news is that the Boulder City Council will begin discussing growth issues at the council meeting this Tuesday, Sept. 2, and there is talk about having a study session on development in October. Unfortunately, study sessions work only if city staff has sufficient direction beforehand to provide the needed information and analysis. But what direction should they go? Vic Fruehauf, a well-known Boulderite who started Fruehauf’s Nursery and was on the Boulder Planning Board, used to say, “If you don’t know your destination, any path will do.” He would frequently repeat variations on this theme during attempts to revise the land use regulations during the 1990’s. His point is even more applicable today: How can the city sort out all the growth-related issues when the big-picture goal is neither well-defined nor agreed upon? We don’t lack for advocates on all sides. For example, some are pushing for more and denser housing, arguing that it will be affordable even though the mar...

“The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and aesthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania’s public natural resources are the common property of all of the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all these people.” So reads the 1971 amendment to Article I, Section 27, of the Pennsylvania state constitution. This amendment defines the balance of power between the state and local governments with regard to fracking. As John Dernbach, who runs a Pennsylvania environmental law center, put it, “The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled the state says how, and the local government has the right to say where.” (See Mark Jaffe’s article in last Sunday’s Denver Post and Monday’s Camera.) This balance is in marked contrast to Colorado, where the state government, supported by the courts, seems to appropriate local powers wh...

Recently a friend told me that the Boulder city government is going to use “working groups” to provide input to its long term housing plan. “Working groups” are useful to design and implement programs. But for housing, working groups would be putting the cart before the horse. The first step, and it’s a big one, is to have a vision for the future of Boulder, one that addresses housing, but as a part of whole. And it needs to be a vision that has the support of the vast majority of Boulder citizens, not just of a few elected officials and city staffers. The “working group” concept came from a 2009 meeting of some 40 Boulderites who were not satisfied with the progress being made in the use of Boulder’s carbon tax, passed in 2006. The most important recommendation from the meeting was to form groups to work on specific aspects of the energy efficiency programs. These groups were to be open to whoever wanted to participate. The point was to include citizens who had expertise but not m...

Boulder’s latest “Community Profile” has both commercial and residential growth continuing at exactly the same percentage rate per year from now through 2035. Currently Boulder has almost 60,000 in-commuters. Given these matching growth rates and the current large surplus of jobs over workers, the number of in-commuters will continue to increase as we add at least another 60,000 jobs and 20,000 or so more residents to what the planning department calls “reasonable build-out.” Is adding more and more employment where we should be headed? It increases traffic congestion and drives up the price of housing, resulting in decreased “diversity.” The spillover effects of adding housing to try to catch up to jobs are equally pernicious — city and school district facilities are overcrowded, services are stretched thin, traffic is made even worse, and finite resources like water and open space are stressed. None of this is desirable, so why are we going there? The excess of in-commuters can...

I just returned from a trip to Bhutan. Religion there is fully integrated with government; the fortresses called dzongs serve both as religious and civil centers. But perhaps because it’s Buddhism, which is nontheistic, it doesn’t come across as oppressive. That’s unlike the Supreme Court’s recent decision that allows governmental entities to begin their public meetings with openly sectarian prayers. The First Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” But Justice Kennedy wrote in support of this decision, “In the general course, legislative bodies do not engage in impermissible coercion merely by exposing constituents to prayer they would rather not hear and in which they need not participate.” So Kennedy would consider it “permissible coercion” to have a minaret on the Capitol lawn broadcasting calls to prayer on loudspeakers every morning and evening? I don’t think so. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes got it right when he sa...

In a recent presentation, the City of Boulder’s planning director identified sustainability and resilience as two concepts critical for defining Boulder’s future. But is there a real commitment to take the necessary actions? I suspect that the full implications of these concepts will be ignored, and that our future will be business as usual — more and more growth and development without any requirement to maintain the qualities that make Boulder great. The Brundtland Commission of the United Nations defined sustainability well: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” It’s obvious that “meeting the needs of the present” cannot mean continually allowing conditions to deteriorate. But that is just what we are doing. For example, continuing to allow more residential development without adequate funding to provide libraries, parks, recreation centers, and schools is not...