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Opinion: ‘One size fits all’ densification of transit corridors bill has serious flaws

House Bill 24-1313, or Housing in Transit-Oriented Communities , which is now at the state Senate, is the successor to the pro-growth bill that failed to pass at the end of last year’s session. That bill generated a lot of substantive objections, especially over the loss of local control over how much and what kind of growth Colorado communities wanted. Unfortunately, this 70-page bill is not much better. And it’s so complicated that just the administrative costs will be substantial. Here’s my attempt to identify some of its many issues. This bill basically attempts to leverage communities with significant transit service to allow massive densification, up to 40 units per acre, of areas within a half mile of certain transit stops. That’s way above the typical low-density neighborhood with maybe four to six units per acre. It threatens to cut off certain federal highway funds or legally force communities to comply if its goals are not achieved. The bill exempts many areas from its h
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Opinion: What does Xcel really care about?

I recently read about a group in the Denver area called Citizens Against Utility Abuse (CAUA). Their immediate focus is on the deal that cities that have granted Xcel franchises have received regarding undergrounding their power lines. All such franchises apparently have essentially the same terms as Boulder’s franchise does, which states, “The Company (Xcel) shall budget and allocate an annual amount, equivalent to one percent (1%) of the preceding year’s Electric Gross Revenues (what Boulder ratepayers paid Xcel for electricity), for the purpose of undergrounding its existing overhead electric distribution facilities located in City Streets…” plus details. The group’s complaint is that equivalent undergrounding is not available in areas that don’t have franchises. (A franchise gives Xcel exclusive rights to serve electricity for periods up to 20 years.) Xcel makes money from undergrounding; the funds Xcel invests earn the same high return as if invested in power plants or transmiss
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Opinion: More on the “housing crisis” and what Coloradans think

My thanks to both the Daily Camera and the Denver Post for publishing my opinion piece in last Sunday’s editions. It was quite long; their indulgence was much appreciated. Also, apologies to former Denver Mayor Hancock; I misspelled his name. I received many emails on this, almost all in support of limiting growth in Colorado. One raised the concern that the “buy-down” program (exchanging down payment assistance for limiting future price increases) would add more housing units. I should have made it clear that this program targets existing units, so it won’t add more.   I thought I’d expand on what the 1,024 Coloradans said in the survey I discussed. The full survey is at  https://coloradosprawl.com/ polls/  and the article on it is at  www.snowbrains.com  entitled “Survey finds majority of Coloradans are unhappy with the state’s rapid population growth.”   Here are some of the survey’s questions:   “The U.S. Department of Agriculture calculates that Colorado, over the last four decade
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Opinion: We can’t build our way out of this ‘housing crisis’ without dramatically reducing quality of life

Colorado’s “housing crisis” is essentially unsolvable by simply building more market-rate housing, at least if we care about our quality of life here in Colorado. According to a 2023 survey of 1,000 Americans, discussed in a recent Forbes story, Denver took first place as the most desired place to live. Seventeen percent of the respondents picked it first; that represents 58 million people nationwide. Even if only 1 in 5 had the means to move here, that’s 11.6 million people, nearly tripling Colorado’s population. Do we want 2-3 times as many people in Colorado, with the attendant crowds, traffic jams, air pollution, water shortages, etc.? How about mandatory reservation systems requiring weeks-ahead planning just to visit mountain areas? Rocky Mountain National Park, Brainard Lake, Mt. Blue Sky, and Quandary Peak already require reservations. Great Sand Dunes may soon, as visitation has about doubled in the last 10 years. What about going skiing, but with even longer lift lines and bi
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Opinion: Bringing collaboration back into our city processes

Last Saturday, the Daily Camera had some useful commentary by the  Community Editorial Board  members on how citizens could better participate in city council meetings. These were stimulated by Boulder partnering with the National Civic League to run interviews and meetings and provide recommendations. I participated in the NCL process and found it quite illuminating. But in my opinion, the fundamental issue was avoided: For citizen participation to work, the basic relationship between the citizens who want to engage and the citizens who were elected to be engaged with needs to change. What’s missing is “collaboration” — council members and citizens need to “co-labor,” to jointly work together. This cannot be a top-down process; getting elected does not magically endow someone with superior skills or intelligence. When the council sees itself as apart from, more virtuous than or smarter than the citizens, this “collaboration” falls apart. Alternatively, when council members see the
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Opinion: Bad land use bills abound from our Democratic-controlled Legislature

After my column on the Zenzinger/Kirkmeyer land use bill appeared two weeks ago, those legislators told me that the draft they sent me was just for my review and was not for publication. This was not clear to me in their original communication. Anyway, I apologized to them. And, whatever their bill’s flaws, it was way better than the latest “housing crisis” bill that I discuss here. Representatives Steven Woodrow and Iman Jodeh’s bill, HB24-1313, sets housing density standards for “transit areas,” those within a half mile of a transit corridor station. It first incentivizes this increase in density, but if the community doesn’t comply, it forces them to do it anyway. All of this will be supervised by Polis’s Department of Local Affairs. Their bill starts with the state demographer making a precise forecast of Colorado’s growth — “ONE MILLION SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED (more) PEOPLE BY 2050.” That’s about a 30% increase, around 1% per year compounded. This is obviously based on
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Opinion: Another legislative attempt to resolve the ‘housing crisis’ – and push more growth

The Denver Post recently carried an opinion column by state Senators Barbara Kirkmeyer and Rachel Zenzinger discussing their “response to Colorado’s housing crisis.” Their commendable bi-partisan effort put in more thought than much of the discussion to date. But they ran into the same problems that others have: What is the source of the problem? How big is it? What should we require to be done? How do you respond to Coloradans who don’t want a lot more growth? Their draft Bill hinges on how to define “housing needs.” The problem is that the various legitimate possible definitions are very far apart numerically. For example, per a Forbes survey, 17% of respondents nationwide said that the Denver area would be their first choice to move to. That’s around 57 million people. Even if only one in ten of them had the resources to do it, they would about double Colorado’s population. Should we immediately double our housing supply? Colorado’s births over deaths statistics paint a much differe
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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 i
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Opinion: Disrupting both our growth management system and our neighborhoods

By the time you read this, the City Council will have decided whether to repeal Boulder’s Residential Growth Management System. This piece of our city code addresses how many housing units are allowed to be built in a year. It has significant exemptions, like for affordable housing units and whole projects with at least 35% affordable units. Thus, it provides an incentive for developers to include more affordable units. The reason this is an issue is that the Legislature, in its infinite wisdom, decided that the “housing crisis” required them to pass a law last session that forbids local governments from limiting the annual number of residential building permits. They called such restrictions “anti-growth laws.” But the council’s concern is misguided: Boulder’s RGMS is NOT in violation of this state law, simply because our current RGMS exempts affordable housing units. According to BRC 9-14-8 “Exemptions,” the City can approve an UNLIMITED number of permanently affordable units by righ
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Comments on the “Accessory Dwelling Unit” Bill Draft, 1-10-2024.

Comments on the “Accessory Dwelling Unit” bill draft, dated 1-10-2024. By Steve Pomerance, former Boulder city council member; drafted on 1-15-24 and edited on 1-18-2024, after listening to the Zoom session that Judy Amabile, the bill’s sponsor, held the afternoon of 1-17-2024 Very Brief Summary of the draft “Accessory Dwelling Unit” Bill: The bill requires a subject jurisdiction to allow, as a use by right, one accessory dwelling unit as an accessory use to a single-unit detached dwelling in any part of the subject jurisdiction where the jurisdiction allows single-unit detached dwellings as a use by right. The bill also prohibits subject jurisdictions from enacting or enforcing certain local laws that would restrict the construction or conversion of an accessory dwelling unit. Subject jurisdictions are those in metropolitan planning organizations (the northern Front Range, Boulder/Denver area, Colorado Springs area, Pueblo area, and Grand Junction area.) My Background:
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