Opinion: As amendments to land-use bill highlight flaws, Boulder struggles with ballot measure titling process

Trying to keep up on the latest nonsense on SB23-213, Gov. Jared Polis’ land grab bill, is brutal. The bill keeps getting amended, first in the Senate and now in the House, and no doubt more to come in a joint session. The Denver Post captured the basic flaws perfectly in their Wednesday editorial:

“Colorado lawmakers’ attempt to completely overhaul planning and zoning in almost every municipality across this state with a single piece of legislation was ambitious, drastic, and rushed.

“We can think of nothing this session that would have affected the lives of home-owning Coloradans more than the original proposal in The Land Use bill to eliminate single-family-only zoning across the state in favor of more density. And sadly, we are not convinced by the data that it would have made housing any more affordable for those who are still struggling to buy.”

In short, the whole bill was built on fantasy thinking, unsupported by the data. 

An earlier amendment to completely eliminate occupancy limits on unrelated people — like Boulder’s current maximum of “3 unrelated,” which limits student takeover of single-family neighborhoods — was further amended to allow limits of five (or more) for college towns.

“However, if a municipality has an institution of higher education within its boundaries, and the number of people enrolled in that institution of higher education during the academic year is equal to or greater than twenty-five percent of the municipality’s residential population, that municipality may enact or enforce residential occupancy limits on more than five unrelated people living in one dwelling,” the amendment states. 

I’ve been told that some houses in Boulder are already illegally rented to five unrelated people, and landlords still charge the same per-person rent. So, with this occupancy increase, all landlords can legally increase their total revenues. Then home prices will rise, making affordability worse, and of course, the number of rentals and resulting neighborhood impacts will increase. So, I expect more amendments.

On the occupancy issue, Boulder just issued what was clearly a push poll on BeHeardBoulder. It was addressed: “Students! Renters! Property Owners! Have you or someone you know struggled to find a home or apartment in Boulder due to cost or occupancy limits?” Homeowners and families were not invited. And it calls our situation a “housing crisis,” just like Polis did in pushing SB23-213. 

The poll itself states, “Project Objective: Increase the number of unrelated people that can live in a home or apartment to increase affordable housing opportunities in the community.” Of course, that’s based on the (mis)assumption that landlords won’t simply raise the rents to maintain their per-person revenues, which, as I said above, is apparently already going on.

When multiple people, including me, pointed out these biases, the city sent out another email attempting to excuse all this, but never acknowledged any mistakes in the first place, nor fixed anything. Clearly, the “3-up” rule has not gained enough traction: When you screw up, own up, then clean it up. 

Speaking of mistakes, the flaws in the city’s initiative/referendum process are finally starting to be addressed. Some years ago, the council passed an ordinance mostly exempting the city from the state law governing local initiatives and referenda, but never replaced these missing parts. This foolish move led to the CU South referendum petition having a separate title and summary. But the city-written ballot included only the (resulting incomplete) summary, which confused voters, and likely led some to vote “no” when they meant to vote “yes.”

City staff is now proposing to remove the ordinance’s exemption; this would fix the petition format issue. But still missing is language, like in CRS 1-40-106, the state law for statewide ballots, requiring that the title setting entity, “… whenever practicable, avoid titles for which the general understanding of the effect of a ‘yes/for’ or ‘no/against’ vote will be unclear. The title … shall correctly and fairly express the true intent and meaning thereof.” Also missing is a requirement that the council consult with the committee of petitioners on the title and a process to allow challenges to misleading titles in district court. Had these rules been in place for the CU South petition process, the ballot measure title would have been fixed and been clear and unambiguous. 

This is once again relevant because a petition is being circulated for “Safe Zones 4 Kids” to prioritize enforcement and cleanup of homeless campsites around schools, sidewalks and multi-use paths. Let’s hope that the council makes the amendments necessary to restore the full set of protections before this title is set.

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