Opinion: Boulder, whatever happened to neighborhood planning?


Councilmember Sam Weaver made some pretty strong promises to neighborhoods in his 2017 re-election campaign material, “I support sub-community planning, which includes neighborhood-level stakeholder engagement to explore what the local desires are regarding the potential for additional density through zoning changes.”… “I believe that any policy changes that enable increases in neighborhood density must be created in close partnership with the residents of the neighborhoods they impact.” (sam4council.wordpress.com/responsible-planning).

Councilmember Mary Young also strongly supported direct involvement by affected residents in the Daily Camera story on her re-election campaign. The Camera said: She’s for “thoughtful redevelopment” that’s informed by sub-area planning in neighborhoods. Where some would argue this approach gives veto power, or something close to it, to neighbors resistant to change in largely single-family zones, Young sees it another way. “I believe that we need to craft land-use and housing policies that put community first and people over profit,” her campaign website reads. When she cast one of two dissenting votes on an ordinance to expand co-operative housing in Boulder, she did so, she said at the time, because she felt the process had betrayed residents who never got to participate at a level that constituted true democracy.

(dailycamera.com/2017/10/06/mary-young-voice-for-underrepresented-sees-boulder-with-newfound-clarity).

Both these councilmembers also served on the Planning Board, so they knew the significance of what they said. And I’d bet that other council members would agree with the need for accurate outreach.
So why is it that the processes around the redevelopment of the hospital site between Alpine and Balsam, the Large Homes and Lots rezoning project, and the Use Tables update lack any focused effort to determine what the neighbors who will be impacted by these changes really want? This is not some abstract discussion. It’s about people’s homes, their quality of life, and their relationships. The council’s fundamental job is to be the conduit for people to express their concerns and respond to them. That’s what real representative government is about. To accomplish this requires actually listening. But council members aren’t showing up to hear what people have to say.
The city’s processes (open houses, surveys, etc.) are inadequate to meet this need. There are no open houses targeted at those directly affected. The surveys do not differentiate those who are impacted from those who are peripheral, and so distort the conclusions. And some questions are biased rather than treating all outcomes equally, and do not cover the complete range of options.
Getting good feedback is not hard. For example, for Alpine-Balsam, the city could pick a distance and then send out questionnaires to all the households within that radius, and code them (just like election ballots) so that the city can follow up to ensure that everyone who wants to can respond. The city has already committed $56 million for the site ($40 million for purchase, $16 million for demolition), so what’s a few thousand dollars more to actually ask all the neighbors what they want?
For Large Houses and Lots, the city already knows where the few thousand affected lots are. So contact the property owners and their immediate neighbors. Again, the cost is trivial compared to property value impacts and future construction costs.
The Use Tables are completely impenetrable to most people, and significant revisions should be a last step, done after planning is completed, rather than now, when it’s “Ready, Fire, Aim.”
The city also needs to provide respondents with good economic and energy analyses. Zillow data shows that splitting up large lots won’t yield market rate affordability. And cost analyses shows that duplexes, triplexes, etc. won’t either. As to the city’s misleading goal statement about smaller houses saving energy, where’s the analysis of the waste associated with demolition and reconstruction? What about simply requiring new development to be net zero?
Finally, people are much more willing to cooperate and compromise if they know that the big-picture end result will be acceptable. But most people I know think that these processes are out of control and feel totally uncertain as to where their neighborhoods will end up.
Councilmember Mirabai Nagle got it exactly right in her 2017 Camera interview. “Sometimes I think things are so daunting that people feel, ‘You know what? I don’t have a voice; screw it, I’m not going to get involved,’” Nagle said. “I want to find ways of having it be less daunting, of saying that we really do want to hear from all of you. … I don’t have all the answers on everything right now, but I want to use the community.”

(dailycamera.com/2017/10/06/mirabai-nagle-native-boulderite-troubled-by-citys-changing-identity).

Amen.



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