Steve Pomerance

What got me started on this topic was a July 21 Hotline from Boulder’s deputy mayor Nicole Speer to the council, city staff and citizens of Boulder discussing the Denver Regional Council of Government’s draft Regional Housing Needs Assessment. This is DRCOG’s attempt to provide a quantitative picture of future growth in the Denver Metro area. Per the quotes that Speer pulled, it says that the region will need 511,000 more housing units by 2050 to accommodate current needs and projected future growth, and that 300,000 of these will need to be affordable to households earning 60% or less of area median income. When I read this email, the first question that came up was, where did these numbers come from? In particular, how does DRCOG know that 511,000 new units will magically meet demand? So I read the full report to see how these numbers were determined. As it turns out, DRCOG hired a consulting company to do the work, and they based their analysis on data provided by the Colorado State...

The Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan is an agreement between the Boulder City Council and the County Commissioners that lays out the allowed development across the whole Boulder Valley, including the city of Boulder, the unincorporated areas of Gunbarrel, and the surrounding rural prairie and foothills. The BVCP is updated every five years to reflect the current vision for future growth and development. The Plan includes basic levels of density, use, etc. But the details of city zoning are set by the council, and the county’s are set by the commissioners. The Plan divides the Boulder Valley into four parts: Area I, the actual city of Boulder; Area II, adjacent parcels that are designated for possible annexation once services are available so they can be developed at an urban level; Area III Planning Reserve, about 500-plus acres north of town, including 200+ acres bought for parks, that may be “moved” into Area II; and Area III Rural Preservation, all the rest of the land, which is in...