Opinion: ‘Housing Boulder’ more hype than progress
The name “Housing Boulder” should give you pause. It’s hard to imagine a city project name that could be more of an overreach. And the project reflects just that — lots of hype, but not much solid analysis. One of Housing Boulder’s original goals was, “Create diverse housing choices in every neighborhood: Facilitate the creation of a variety of housing options in every part of the city, including existing single-family neighborhoods.” But it’s not possible to build even an affordable four-plex on a lot that costs $800,000 to $1 million, as many do in the neighborhoods west of Broadway and in other parts of town; that’s $200,000-$250,000 per unit for the land alone. The only place this form of densification has a chance of working, even in the short term, is where housing prices haven’t yet skyrocketed. This means in the neighborhoods that are still relatively affordable. So the Housing Boulder goal is tantamount to identifying these areas as sacrifice zones. OAUs (“owner access