Opinion: Untangling the co-op snarl


“The people’s representatives will reach their destination, invested with the highest confidence and unlimited power. They will show great character. They must consider that great responsibility follows inseparably from great power. To their energy, to their courage, and above all to their prudence, they shall owe their success and their glory.” — Translated from decrees of the French National Convention, May 8, 1793.

By now, most council members must have figured out that their notion that the whole council could design co-op legislation from scratch just using public hearings but without adequate problem definition, alternatives analysis, or data collection, was ill conceived. Prudence, as the French advise, would direct the council to own up to the mistake and take a different tack, as I suggest below. I believe it would produce a more satisfactory result in less time, even starting at this late date.
Here are some parts:
The council needs to consider other alternative living arrangements besides co-ops. For example, two single mothers with two or three kids each, four or five unrelated senior citizens, or a group of disabled people with a caretaker could live in a single family house with arguably more societal benefit and less disruption than eight or 10 or 15 millennials. But none of these have been considered in the current ordinance.
The council is still trying to solve neighborhood conflicts with more and more rules as to how many people, cars, meetings, bank accounts, etc. a co-op must have. The presumption seems to be that sufficiently intrusive rules will force people to behave in a certain way. But, of course, rules alone don’t make people behave. And real enforcement would require that the city spend more money, hire more staff and actually prosecute violators. However, the council’s lack of substantive action to date has convinced people that the current weak level of enforcement will continue.
The council has also failed to deal with the market effects of their approach. I’ve already seen a Craigslist ad for forming a co-op. Apparently the potential to easily turn an over-occupied rental into a “co-op” is obvious, showing the futility of attempting to define “legitimate” co-ops. And all these ersatz co-ops will create a “sellers market,” allowing landlords to escalate rents, significantly reducing the affordability benefit of co-ops. On the other side, single family homeowners’ property values will be damaged by the impacts from the expected change in the quality of neighborhood life. And, even after a year on this issue, the council has yet to require new residential development to include units specifically designed for co-ops.
The council should make a fresh start.
First, the council should take the “responsibility” that comes along with the “power” and acknowledge that residents who bought homes in single-family neighborhoods have a reasonable expectation that their lifestyle will not be significantly disrupted by changes in the zoning rules. Second, the council should include consideration of the other alternative living arrangements that might work better for single-family neighborhoods. These people’s needs also deserve to be recognized. Third, the council should institute only those rules that they seriously intend to enforce, including distances for separation of co-op units, limits on numbers of cars and occupants, etc., and give up on the unenforceable rules that try to control internal behavior.
Finally, as the “people’s representatives,” council members who are pushing the co-op agenda should start treating the current residents of single-family neighborhoods as equally adult and open-minded as those few who happen to be sitting behind the city council dais. So the council should give neighbors the power to decide if a co-op can stay. For example, the properties within a 100-foot radius of a co-op property would vote every year on whether the co-op should stay, and if two properties say “no,” then the co-op is gone. This would give the city a real incentive to enforce its laws so as to help ensure the co-ops’ survival and give the co-op residents an opportunity to demonstrate their ability to pay attention to their neighbors’ concerns.
It is my contention that by not trying to jam co-ops down the throats of the single-family residents and giving them the power to say “yes” or “no,” these residents will be much more open to co-ops, and that the current resistance — created by the rather overbearing attitude of some council members that “we know better than you” — will dissipate. And it will also allay fears that this is all really a stalking horse for opening up single family neighborhoods to massive redevelopment.


Popular Posts

Opinion: Opportunity for the new Boulder City Council

Congratulations to the four new Boulder City Council members! You have a great opportunity to make a contribution to the Boulder community, but it will take a lot of work to do it responsibly; the learning curve is pretty steep. Here are some suggestions for you (and other Council members) that may help improve the process. Read the Charter. It is the document that governs how you, city staff, and board and commission members operate, and how you relate to each other. It defines the limits of your and their power, and can only be amended by a citizen vote. You don’t have to remember every word. But just knowing what’s there makes you more self reliant and less at the mercy of others’ opinions. For example, relative to the recent meeting discussion over diversity, the council does  not  have the power to suspend the rules as to when the mayor is selected. Charter Section 14 specifies, “The mayor shall be chosen by the council from its own number, upon the convening of t...
Read more

Opinion: Is this the end of Boulder as we know it?

Much of what has made Boulder such a great place to live has been the work of people half a century ago. These people recognized what I call the “ ratchet effect ,” that bad development decisions cannot be undone, so policies needed to be put in place to prevent, or at least limit, the damage that a growth-at-all-costs majority of the council could do. These policies include charter limits, like the Blue Line that prevents city water for development from being supplied above a certain altitude, the 55-foot height limit that has prevented high-rise development from cutting off our views, and the open space referendum process that allows a 60-day window for citizens to challenge disposals of open space. Other constraints include the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan’s requirement for Planning Board agreement for land-use changes in the area inside the city limits (Area I) and additional agreement by the county commissioners and county Planning Commission for urban development further...
Read more

Policy Documents: Impact Fees and Adequate Public Facilities

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...
Read more