Opinion: Comp plan survey skewed


Many claims have been made about what Boulder’s recent survey really means regarding attitudes toward growth. Just looking at the survey responses gives one impression, but carefully reviewing the survey document itself to see whether it provides accurate and complete background material gives quite another. Unfortunately, much of the material for the growth questions was simply inadequate, and, as a result, respondents would likely choose answers that were more pro-growth than if they were given better information. It’s not that what the survey said was wrong, but, in many instances, what was missing was far more important than what was included. Here are some examples; see what you think:
The “Background” for the growth management questions states that by 2040 we may see an additional 18,000+ more residents and a similar number of more jobs. But these numbers are not even close to what Boulder could be if fully built out. How would survey respondents know this, since the “Background” material doesn’t tell them? If, instead of the 18,000+ more jobs, the survey had stated that the full build-out potential is 100,000 or more jobs above the current almost 100,000 (as city staff calculated a few years ago), I suspect that people would have answered very differently. (Also, these 18,000 numbers for 2040 future jobs and residents are based on growth rates that are almost exactly identical. This makes it appear that they are simply made up numbers without any real basis.)
In addition, the fact that Boulder has 60,000 in-commuters was never mentioned. All that was said was, “there are more people in-commuting for jobs than out.” What an understatement! Something like five to six times as many people in-commute as out-commute. Would Boulderites have answered differently if they knew the truth? We’ll never know.
Then there is the question of growth’s impacts and who pays. In the same “Background,” the survey stated that the Comprehensive Plan “calls for growth to pay its own way.” But the survey fails to acknowledge that, so far, this is a fantasy, and not reality.
For example, the amount currently collected from new development for transportation is tiny compared to the cost. The 2014 Transportation Master Plan’s Vision Plan — the only existing plan that actually would prevent traffic from getting worse — is under-funded by $458 million over the next 20 years. That’s not the total cost, but what is missing even with two general sales taxes, development excise taxes, impact fees, and other exactions.
This missing $458 million comes out to be roughly $20,000 per new resident or new non-resident worker based on the city’s growth projections. (Interestingly, residents and in-commuters generate about the same traffic, based on 2013 data.) Certainly, that plan could be refined and costs reduced somewhat, but the real issue is that the funding gap is huge. Growth does not come even close to paying its own way with respect to transportation. People taking the survey should have been told this. I suspect they would have responded very differently.
The survey should also have noted that, even with residential growth of almost 25 percent and job growth over 28 percent over the last 25 years, Boulder has not added any significant public facilities. So, apparently, Boulder’s other non-utility impact fees also are also inadequate.
Regarding affordable housing, the survey contained the statement that in 2015 the council approved a linkage fee so that “new commercial development helps pay for the construction of permanently affordable housing units related to the new employees that are generated.” It’s true that the linkage fee was put into place, but the “helps pay” is minimal.
How meaningful is the $9.53 per sq. ft. linkage fee? Here’s the math: Per the city, the required subsidy for a new 1,200 sq. ft. attached rental unit is $186,671to make it affordable to the target group. Again, that’s the subsidy, not the total cost. To collect $186,671 at $9.53 per sq. ft. requires 19,588 sq. ft. At 150 sq. ft. per new office employee (the national average), that means 130 employees. Even at Google’s less intense occupancy level, that means almost 100 employees. So the $9.53 fee only would provide one affordable unit for all those employees. This simply isn’t close to being sufficient. Respondents, if they knew all this, would likely have given impact fees a much higher priority.
With all of this incomplete — and, because of that, deceptive — information that survey respondents were given, I would be very careful in taking the results as indicating that the citizens of Boulder support more growth.


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