Opinion: Preserving access to wild lands should be first priority, not more development

From 1950 to 1960, Boulder’s population doubled from around 20,000 to almost 40,000. This led to Boulder’s most important actions to preserve our natural surroundings: the Blue Line, which limited the City to providing water only below a certain altitude and thereby preserved our mountain backdrop; the Open Space program, which bought land to protect its natural qualities and the species that live there; and the 55-foot building height limit, which allowed us to see above our human-made developments and enjoy the views of the sky and the Flatirons. (Unfortunately, CU is not subject to Boulder’s zoning laws, and so builds as high as it wants.)

We now have a population of over 108,000 people, almost triple the 1960 population level. And we are not alone. The Denver metro area has gone from just over 800,000 residents in 1960 to nearly 3 million now, over three and a half times as many. The earth’s population grew from around 3 billion in 1960 to over 8 billion, and could hit 10 billion in this century. This ties to the huge immigration rush, another factor that increases housing demand.

A Forbes survey has the Denver area as “the most desired place to live,” with 17% of respondents picking it as first choice. Even if moving here is realistic for only a tenth of those who chose Denver, that would double Colorado’s population. 

Per the Denver Post, the Denver market has 120,000 apartment units in the planning stages, with almost 45,000 of those already under construction. “Only three other markets in the nation — Dallas, Phoenix, and Austin — have more units expected to complete in 2024,” a content manager at RealPage told the Post. Zillow is predicting that Denver metro home values will drop 1.3% this year. So even adding around a quarter of a million people in the next year or so in this market-rate housing won’t make much of a dent in prices. But persisting on this course will certainly impact our quality of life.

When I moved here in the ‘60s, getting out in nature was easy — no reservations required, and plenty of space in trailhead parking lots. I remember climbing at Lumpy Ridge, outside of Estes Park, and seeing only a few other teams, and likewise hiking up 14ers. Now many relatively nearby places, including RMNP and Brainard Lake, and even more distant like Quandary Peak, require hard-to-get reservations, and elsewhere parking is jammed. Just going when you have the urge is no longer possible. But it’s still way better here than most other places. So, I expect that the demand won’t lessen, since those other places will also become more crowded and less livable.

I’ve been reading the book “Wilding: Returning Nature to Our Farm,” by Isabella Tree. It’s “An inspiring story about what happens when 3,500 acres of land, farmed for centuries, is left to return to the wild, and about the wilder, richer future a natural landscape can bring,” per the Amazon review. The couple that owned the land did this in part because the land was not very productive, so farming it was not profitable. It was unclear to them whether “re-wilding” would work. But they persevered and eventually succeeded.

My point is: We need to focus on preserving what makes Colorado so appealing. Whether we are conscious of it or not, in my opinion, it is our access to the wild, to land not jammed with people, to places where we may encounter nature like it was before we over-occupied the planet, and even to places where the outcome of our visits is uncertain, even risky. We need to do whatever it takes to keep those qualities accessible to people at whatever level they choose to experience them.

This is the direction we need to take. Someone needs to say, “Enough is enough,” and focus on preserving and improving quality, not just virtue-signaling that “More is better.” This means implementing serious requirements for new development, like 50% permanently affordable housing for new residential projects, jobs-housing linkage fees for new employment projects adequate for all employees who need help, and limiting overall commercial/industrial development. This means having a buy-down program for existing housing that will eventually maintain a reasonable economic mix. It means not allowing buildings to obstruct our views of the sky.

But, most importantly, it means focusing on preserving and improving access to our wild lands, so that we as humans can remember who we really are and where we come from.

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